“No.”

“Then let us have done with this first, if you please.  Who is Gorton?”

“Who is—­Gorton?” he repeated, after a dumbfounded pause.  “What Gorton?”

“Well, I don’t know; unless it’s that man who gave evidence at the inquest on your brother.”

Lord Hartledon stared at her, as well he might; and gulped down his breath, which seemed choking him.  “But what about Gorton?  Why do you ask me the question?”

“Because I fancy he is connected with this trouble.  I—­I thought I heard you and Mr. Carr mention the name yesterday when you were whispering together.  I’m sure I did—­there!”

As far as Lord Hartledon remembered, he and Mr. Carr had not been whispering together yesterday; had not mentioned the name of Gorton.  They had done with the subject at that late sitting, the night of the barrister’s arrival; who had brought news that the Gorton, that morning tried for a great crime, was not the Gorton of whom they were in search.  Lord Hartledon gazed at his wife with questioning eyes, but she persisted in her assertion.  It was sinfully untrue; but how else could she account for knowing the name?

“Do you suppose I dreamed it, Lord Hartledon?”

“I don’t know whether you dreamed it or not, Maude.  Mr. Carr has certainly spoken to me since he came of a man of that name; but as certainly not in your hearing.  One Gorton was tried for his life on Friday—­or almost for his life—­and he mentioned to me the circumstances of the case:  housebreaking, accompanied by violence, which ended in death.  I cannot understand you, Maude, or the fancies you seem to be taking up.”

She saw how it was—­he would admit nothing:  and she looked straight out across the dreary park, a certain obstinate defiance veiled in her eyes.  By the help of Heaven or earth, she would find out this secret that he refused to disclose to her.

“Almost every action of your life bespeaks concealment,” she resumed.  “Look at those letters you received in your dressing-room on Friday night:  you just opened them and thrust them unread into your pocket, because I happened to be there.  And yet you talk of caring for me!  I know those letters contained some secret or other you dare not tell me.”

She rose in some temper, and gave the fire a fierce stir.

Lord Hartledon kept her by him.

“One of those letters was from Mr. Carr; and I presume you can make no objection to my hearing from him.  The other—­Maude, I have waited until now to disclose its contents to you; I would not mar your happiness yesterday.”

She looked up at him.  Something in his voice, a sad pitying tenderness, caused her heart to beat a shade quicker.  “It was a foreign letter, Maude.  I think you observed that.  It bore the French postmark.”

A light broke upon her.  “Oh, Percival, it is about Robert!  Surely he is not worse!”

He drew her closer to him:  not speaking.