‘Who can this man be? How much does he know?’ was her unspoken thought.
‘I am afraid you are ill, Mrs Boyd,’ remarked the Baronet.
‘A spasm; a mere nothing,’ she answered.—‘To return to what you were saying. I have neither seen nor heard anything of Don Diego Riaz for many years, and I hope neither to see nor hear anything of him in time to come. There was no love lost between him and me.’
‘His was a singular character, and strange tales were told of him. For instance, it was whispered that on one occasion when a certain member of his family left home without his knowledge or consent, he’——
‘Spare me the recital, I pray of you. The mere mention of that man’s name is hateful to me! utterly hateful!’ Her voice was charged with passion, her black eyes seemed to strike fire. She walked across to the window and then came back again.
Sir Frederick felt that he had pursued the topic as far as it was safe to do so. ‘’Tis she; I can no longer doubt,’ he murmured to himself. ‘I have not forgotten what I was told in Mexico.’
‘How much or how little does this man know?’ Estelle kept asking herself. She was seriously uneasy.
‘Do you purpose making a long stay in England, Mrs Boyd?’ asked the Baronet in his most matter-of-fact tone.
‘I think not, Sir Frederick. My husband talks about sailing for South America in a few days. He has lost nearly the whole of his fortune. N’est ce pas?’
‘I believe so. I was prodigiously sorry to hear of it.—Do you accompany your husband abroad, Mrs Boyd?’