“Mr. Innes is at home,” the servant-girl answered.

“Is he in the music-room?”

“Yes, sir.  What name?”

“No name is necessary.  I will announce myself,” and he pushed past the girl....  “Excuse me, Mr. Innes, for coming into your house so abruptly, but I was afraid you mightn’t see me if I sent in my name, and it would be impossible for me to go back to London without seeing you.  You don’t know me.”

“I do.  You are Sir Owen Asher.”

“Yes, and have come because I can’t live any longer without having some news of Evelyn.  You know my story—­how she sent me away.  There is nothing to tell you; she has been here, I know, and has told you everything.  But perhaps you don’t know I have just come from the desert, having gone there hoping to forget her, and have come out of the desert uncured.  You will tell me where she is, won’t you?”

Innes did not answer for some while.

“My daughter went to America.”

“Yes, I know that.  I have just come from there, but I could not see her.  The last time we met was at Thornton Grange, and she told me she had decided definitely to leave the stage.  Now, why should she have gone back to the stage?  That is what I have come to ask you.”

This tall, thin, elderly man, impulsive as a child, wearing his heart on his sleeve, crying before him like a little child, moved Innes’s contempt as much as it did his pity.  “All the same he is suffering, and it is clear that he loves her very deeply.”  So perforce he had to answer that Evelyn had gone to America against the advice of her confessor because the Wimbledon nuns wanted money.

“Gone to sing for those nuns!” Owen shrieked.  And for three minutes he blasphemed in the silence of the old music-room, Innes watching him, amazed that any man should so completely forget himself.  How could she have loved him?

“She is returning next week; that is all I know of her movements...  Sir Owen Asher.”

“Returning next week!  But what does it matter to me whether she returns or not?  She won’t see me.  Do you think she will, Mr. Innes?”

“I cannot discuss these matters with you, Sir Owen,” and Innes took up his pen as if anxious for Sir Owen to leave the room so that he might go on copying.  Owen noticed this, but it was impossible for him to leave the room.  For the last twelve years he had been thinking about Innes, and wanted to tell him how Evelyn had been loved, and he wanted to air his hatred of religious orders and religion in general.

“I am afraid I am disturbing you, but I can’t help; it,” and he dropped into a chair.  “You have no idea, Mr. Innes, how I loved your daughter.”

“She always speaks of you very well, never laying any blame upon you—­I will say that.”

“She is a truthful woman.  That is the one thing that can be said.”

Innes nodded a sort of acquiescence to this appreciation of his daughter’s character; and Owen could not resist the temptation to try to take Evelyn’s father into his confidence, he had been so long anxious for this talk.