“Stop!” she cried.

He looked at her curiously.  Her face was drawn with pain.  In her eyes was the look of a being stricken to death.

“It is terrible!” she murmured, “that men so coarse and brutal as you should have the gift of speech.  I do not wish to ask for any mercy from you, but if I am to stay here and listen, you will speak only of facts.”

He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

“You should be hardened by this time,” he said, “but I forgot that we had an audience.  It is always worth while to play a little to the gallery, isn’t it?  Well, facts, then.  The boy is warned against you, and from to-day this house is watched by picked detectives.  Blenavon can avail you nothing, for he knows nothing.  Such clumsy schemes as last night’s are foredoomed to failure, and will only get you into trouble.  You will waste your time here.  Take my advice, and go!”

She rose to her feet.  Smaller and frailer than ever she seemed, as she stood before Ray, dark and massive.

“Your story is plausible,” she said coldly.  “It may even be true.  But, apart from that, I had another and a greater reason for coming to England, for coming to Braster.  I came to seek my husband—­the father of this boy.  I am even now in search of him.”

I held my breath and gazed at Ray.  For the moment it seemed as though the tables were turned.  No signs of emotion were present in his face, but he seemed to have no words.  He simply looked at her.

“He left me in January,” she continued, “determined at least to have speech with his son.  He heard then for the first time of the absconding trustee.  He came to England, if not to implore his son’s forgiveness, at least to place him above want.  And in this country he has never been heard of.  He has disappeared.  I am here to find him.  Perhaps,” she added, leaning a little over towards Ray, and in a slightly altered tone, “perhaps you can help me?”

Again it seemed to me that Ray was troubled by a certain speechlessness.  When at last he found words, they and his tone were alike harsh, almost violent.

“Do you think,” he said, “that I would stretch out the little finger of my hand to help you or him?  You know very well that I would not.  The pair of you, in my opinion, were long since outside the pale of consideration from any living being.  If he is lost, so much the better.  If he is dead, so much the better still.”

“It is because I know how you feel towards him,” she said, slowly, “that I wondered—­yes, I wondered!”

“Well?”

“Whether you could not, if you chose, solve for me the mystery of his disappearance.”

There was as much as a dozen seconds or so of tense silence between them.  She never once flinched.  The cold question of her eyes seemed to burn its way into the man’s composure.  A fierce exclamation broke from his lips.

“If he were dead,” he said, “and if it were my hand which had removed him, I should count it amongst the best actions of my life.”