"Where is Dorian now?" he asked, and they told him that Dorian and Captain Van Hise had taken quarters near the jail where Nita was confined, that they might visit her every day. They had tried to get her out on bail, but had been refused.
"You have been to see her?" he asked, knowing well what the answer would be.
"My dear Mr. Kayne, a murderess!" and Mrs. Courtney lifted her aristocratic hands in dismay.
"That remains to be proven, you know!" he said quietly, and arose to take leave.
They pressed him to remain, but he told them he wanted to see old Meg again. He might return in the evening. He went slowly through the grounds, haunted by the memory of the apparition he had seen on his last visit to Gray Gables. Was it real, or a phantasm of a tortured fancy? He could not decide.
"Oh, Pepita, Pepita! only to unravel the mystery of your fate, and the mystery of your flight, what would I not give?" he groaned.
He loitered on the lonely shore. The surf rolled up to his feet with a hollow murmur, and receded. Far off, the tapering white sails of an outwardbound ship glimmered on the horizon like a fading hope, and was lost to sight.
He was well armed this time, and carried a goodly store of gold, believing that both were necessary to the success of his mission to old Meg. Suddenly, the sunset light faded out, and the sky grew dark with storm-clouds, while a fast-rising gale began to toss the waves into hurrying foam.
"Ah! a little bit of a storm. I must hasten my steps," he thought, and walked on briskly, but it grew dark ere he reached the cabin, and the sound of voices from the open doorway arrested his steps.
"She is talking to some one. I will wait," he decided, drawing back, and then he heard:
"If we play our cards well, Jack, she will certainly be hanged, and we can manage to claim all the money."
"But what about the other claimant, mom?--the woman you told me of that came here almost fifteen years ago in search of the little Nita, that you hid until she was gone? What if she turns up and unearths the whole plot? She would get all, for old Farnham said she was Juan de Castro's own sister."
"She will never turn up, Jack, for she followed the miser up to Gray Gables, and I believe he murdered her, for she has never been seen since, and there was a man here not many months ago who offered me untold gold if I would tell him aught of the missing woman."