“It would be easy to get her address; I suppose Innes would tell us.  I shouldn’t mind going down to Dulwich if I were not so busy with this opera company.  The number of people I have to see, five-and-twenty, thirty letters every day to be written—­really I haven’t a minute.  But you, Asher, don’t you think you might run down to Dulwich and interview the old gentleman?  After all, you are the proper person.  I am nobody in her life, only a friend of a few months, whereas she owes everything to you.  It was you who discovered her—­you who taught her, you whom she loved.”

“Yes, there is a great deal in what you say, Ulick, a great deal in what you say.  I hadn’t thought of it in that light before.  I suppose the lot does fall to me by right to go to the old gentleman and ask him.  Before you came we were getting on very well, and he quite understood my position.”

Several days passed and no step was taken to find Evelyn’s address in London.

“If I were you, Asher, I would go down to-morrow, for I have been thinking over this matter, and the company of which I am the secretary of course cannot pay her what she used to get ten years ago, but I think my directors would be prepared to make her a very fair offer, and, after all, the great point would be to get her back to the stage.”

“I quite agree, Ulick, I quite agree.”  “Very well, if you think so go to Dulwich.”  “Yes, yes, I’ll go.”  And Owen came back that evening, not with Evelyn’s address, but with the news that she was in London, living in a flat in Bayswater.  “Think of that,” Owen said, “a flat in Bayswater after the house I gave her in Park Lane.  Think of that!  Devoted to poor people, arranging school treats, and making clothes.”

“So he wouldn’t give you her address?”

“When I asked him, he said, and not unreasonably, ’If she wanted to see you she would write.’  What could I answer?  And to leave a letter with him for her would serve no purpose; my letter would not interest her; it might remain unanswered.  No, no, mine is the past; there is no future for me in her life.  If anybody could do anything it is you.  She likes you.”

“But, my good friend, I don’t know where she is, and you won’t find out.”

“Haven’t I been to see her father?”

“Oh, her father!  A detective agency would give us her address within the next twenty-four hours, and the engagement must be filled up within a few weeks.”

“I can’t go to a detective agency and pay a man to track her out—­no, not for anything.”

“Not even to save her from Monsignor?”

“Not even that.  There are certain things that cannot be done.  Let us say no more.”

A fortnight later Owen was reading in the corner by the window about five o’clock, waiting for Ulick to come home—­he generally came in for a cup of tea—­and hearing a latchkey in the door, he put down his book.

“Is Sir Owen in?”