[CHAPTER XXXI.]
By courtesy of the captain, Miss Evelyn Chandler was allowed to receive a guest who had called upon her, in his private office.
She had expected to see Lynde Pyne, and had prepared her manner of receiving him; but as the door opened she staggered back before the pale, haggard face that confronted her.
"You!" she exclaimed, as the door was closed, and she found herself alone with the man who had been a father to her, and whom she had so grossly deceived. "I—I—did not expect you quite so soon! Did you receive my note?"
All the usual bluster seemed gone from the man's manner.
One would scarcely have recognized Leonard Chandler in the subdued, pale man that stood before Evelyn; but there was something about him that frightened her more than that had ever done. She trembled as his eyes held hers, and catching by the back of a chair, let herself down in it as though to release her hold meant a fall.
"I have received nothing!" he answered gravely. "What information I have had came to me from the newspapers, confirmed by the fact that you were not in your room this morning, nor had you been all night! I have come for a denial of the shameful story that has been published from you, and for irrefutable proof of that denial!"
He spoke calmly, but the most disinterested could have seen how he was suffering.
His pride had been cut to the quick; besides which, he loved the girl who had been one of his household since her childhood, and who had taken the place of the daughter that he had so much craved, but that had not been given him.
Evelyn fancied she saw some hope in his sorrow.