“Robert came to see me,” she resumed.  “He paid a visit in unconventional manner—­waylaid me, in fact, in this very avenue, and asked me to help him.  He declined to meet my husband, and was very bitter about my marriage to a foreigner.  However, I forgave him, for my own heart was sore in me, and he also had been unfortunate in a different way.  We had a long talk, and I kissed him at parting.  I afterwards found that Giovanni had seen us from his bedroom.  He thought Robert was David.  I do not think he believed me, even when I showed him the counterfoil of my cheque-book, and the amount of a remittance I sent to Robert next day.”

“How much was the sum?”

“Five hundred pounds.”

“And where did you send it?”

“To the Hotel Victoria.”

“In his own name?”

“Certainly.”

“Have you ever met him since?”

“Yes, unfortunately.  I was in London, driving through Regent Street in a hansom, when I saw him on the pavement.  I stopped the cab, and asked him to come to luncheon.  We have no town house, so I was staying at the Carlton alone.  Yet how stupidly compromising circumstances can occasionally become!  I returned to Beechcroft.  I did not mention my meeting with Robert because, indeed, Giovanni and I were hardly on speaking terms.  One day, in the library, I was sorting a number of accounts, when I was summoned elsewhere for a few minutes.  On top of the pile was my receipted hotel bill.  My husband came in, glanced at the paper, and saw a charge for a guest.  When I returned he asked me whom I had been entertaining.  I told him, and could not help blushing, the affair being so flagrantly absurd.”

“Is that all?”

“I declare to you, Mr. Brett, that you are now as well informed as I am myself concerning our estrangement.”

“There is, I take it, no objection on your part to the inquiry I have undertaken—­the fixing of responsibility for your brother’s death, I mean?”

Margaret was silent for a few seconds before she said, in a low and steady voice: 

“We are a strange race, we Hume-Frazers.  Somehow I felt, when I first saw you and Davie together, that you would be bound up with a crisis in my life.  I dread crises.  They have ever been unfortunate for me.  I cannot explain myself further.  I know I am approaching an eventful epoch.  Well, I am prepared.  Go on with your work, in God’s name.  I cannot become more unhappy than I am.”

CHAPTER XV

AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

A clock in the church tower chimed the half-hour.

“We dine at seven,” said Mrs. Capella.  “Let us return to the house.  I told the housekeeper to prepare a room for you.  Would you care to remain for the night?  One of the grooms can bring from Stowmarket any articles you may need.”

Brett declined the invitation, pleading a certain amount of work to be done before he retired to rest, and his expectation of finding letters or telegrams at the hotel.