He had taken her everywhere, escorted her to many of the places she attended, and she had seemed to prefer his company to that of the young men of her acquaintance.
She had been his thought and care, and, indeed, his whole life, ever since the death of his wife twelve years before. That was the generally accepted idea of both of them.
One never saw in the papers the mention of the presence of one of them at a function, that the other was not there; for one to be absent meant that both were absent.
Upon the occasion of his going abroad that preceding spring, the papers had commented upon the fact that it was the first time the millionaire had been known to part with his daughter for more than a few hours, or at the most a few days at a time.
But some business had arisen which had called the millionaire abroad, and which could not be avoided, and a house party had already been invited to Pleasantglades.
But it was understood, and so stated in the papers, that it was to be a hurried trip, and so, when later it was announced that he had gone to Switzerland for a little outing, there was some wonder expressed in different quarters about it.
It had even been stated at the time that Edythe would sail by the next steamer to join her father abroad, and that then had come a peremptory cable directing her to remain where she was.
But that father and daughter should have been apart for more than seven months—Nick had not known of the time of Lynne’s return until now—was utterly unprecedented.
The idea of the father’s ever marrying again, devoted as he was to his daughter, and to the memory of her mother, would have sounded utterly absurd in the ears of any one of the acquaintances who knew them well.
The whole affair had a strange look to Nick Carter, for, as he had been led to understand the character of Cephas Lynne, the detective believed him to be a man of the very highest kind of sterling qualities.