But Eugenie had heard the opening door and came to meet her.

‘Is anything wrong?’ she asked, anxiously.  ‘Is Mr. Fenwick ill?’

‘Well, you see, ma’am,’ said Mrs. Flint, cautiously—­’it’s the Sheriff’s horficers—­though they do it as kind as they can.’

Eugenie looked bewildered.

‘A hexecution, ma’am,’ whispered the woman as she led the way.

‘Oh!’ It was a cry of distress, checked by the sight of Fenwick, who stood in the door of his studio.

‘I am sorry you were kept waiting,’ he said, hoarsely.

She made some commonplace reply, and they shook hands.  Mrs. Flint looked at them curiously, and withdrew again into the back premises.

Fenwick turned and walked in front of Eugenie towards the table from which he had risen.  She looked at him in sudden horror—­arrested—­the words she had come to speak stifled on her lips.  Then a quick impulse made her shut the door behind her.  He turned again, bewildered, and raised his hand to his head.

‘My God!’ he said, in a low voice; ’I oughtn’t to have let you come in here.  Go away—­please go away.’

Then she saw him totter backward, raise an overcoat which hung across the back of a chair, and throw it over something lying on the table.  Terror possessed her; his aspect was so ghastly, his movements so strange.  She flew to him, and took his hand in both hers.

’No, no—­don’t send me away!  My friend—­my dear friend—­listen to me.  You look so ill—­you’ve been in trouble!  If I’d only known!  But I’ve thought of you always—­I’ve prayed for you.  And listen—­listen!—­I’ve brought you good news.’

She paused, still holding him.  Her eyes were bright with tears, but her mouth smiled.  He looked at her, trembling.  Her pale charm, her pleading grace moved him unbearably; this beauty, this tenderness—­the sudden apparition of them in this dark room—­unmanned him altogether.

But she came nearer.

’We got home only this morning.  It was a sudden wish of my father’s—­he thought Italy wasn’t suiting him.  We came straight from Rome.  I wrote to you by this morning’s post.  Then—­this afternoon—­after we’d settled my father—­I drove to Lincoln’s Inn Fields.  And I found them so excited—­just sending off a messenger to you.  A letter had arrived by the afternoon post, an hour after you left the office.  I have it here—­they trusted it to me.  Oh, dear Mr. Fenwick, listen to me!  They are on the track—­it’s a real clue this time!  Your wife has been in Canada—­they know where she was three months ago—­it’s only a question of time now.  Oh! and they told me about the theatre—­how wonderful!  Oh!  I believe they’re not far off—­know it—­I feel it!’

He had fallen on his chair; she stood beside him.

‘And you’ve been ill,’ she said, sadly, ’and in great distress, I’m afraid—­about money, was it?  Oh, if I’d only known!  But you’ll let me make that right, won’t you?—­you couldn’t refuse me that?  And think! you’ll have them again—­your wife—­your little girl.’