“I have discovered something,” the chaplain answered slowly. “It is a clue of a kind.”
A rush of blood darkened Clyne’s face. He held out a shaking hand.
“To where the lad is?” he ejaculated, taking a step forward. “To where they have taken him? If it be so, God bless you, Sutton! God bless you! God bless you! I’ll never——”
The clergyman cut him short. He was shocked by the other’s intense excitement and frightened by the swelling of his features. He stayed him by a gesture.
“Nay, nay,” he cried. “I did not mean, sir, to awaken false hopes. Pray pardon me. Pray pardon me. It is a clue, but to Miss Damer’s conduct this morning! To her conduct throughout. To her reasons for silence. Which were not, I am now able to show you, connected with any feeling of hostility to you, Captain Clyne, but rather imposed upon her——”
But Clyne’s face had settled into a mask of stone. Only he knew what the disappointment was! And at that word, “I care not what they were!” he said in a voice incredibly harsh, “or how imposed! If that be all—if that is all you are here to tell me——”
“But if it be all, it is all to her!” Sutton retorted, stung in his turn. “And most urgent, sir.”
“As to her?”
“As to her. It places her conduct in an entirely different light, Captain Clyne, and one which it is your duty to recognise.”
“Have I not said,” Clyne answered with bitter vehemence, “that I wish to hear naught of her conduct? Do you know, sir, in what light I regard her?”