"Were you present at their interview?"
"No. I never am. The man is keeping us here for purposes of his own. I feel sure of it. He has been a good friend to us in many ways: I don't know what we should have done without him; but it is his fault that we are staying on here."
"Undoubtedly it is."
"Adam is just as careless and gay as ever in manner, but I think the announcement in the newspaper has made him secretly uneasy. He is not well to-night."
"What is the matter with him?"
"It is some inward pain: he has complained of it more than once lately. And he has been angry and impatient of an evening because you did not come. It is so lonely for him, you know."
"I do know it, Rose. Nothing brings me here at all but that."
"It was he who at last made me write to you to-day. I was not sorry to do it, for I had wanted to see you myself and to talk to you. I think I have discovered something that may be useful; at least that we may turn to use. First of all--Do you remember a year or two ago there was a public stir about one Philip Salter?"
"No. Who is Philip Salter?"
"Philip Salter committed a great crime: forgery, I think: and he escaped from the hands of the police as they were bringing him to London by rail. I have nearly a perfect recollection of it," continued Mrs. Grey, "for my uncle and aunt took great interest in it, because they knew one of the people whom Salter had defrauded. He was never retaken. At least, I never heard of it."