Perhaps she would have liked to ask the particulars that she did not know. But her whole heart revolted from it; it would have seemed like _acknowledging_ Edward's crime. "You see his being in India is only a temporary safeguard, and these parties who hold his safety in their hands might bring him home if they chose. It is only in compliance with my urgent entreaties that they have kept passive so long. But the delay is extending itself beyond all reason, and they--in short, Miss Davenal, they will not wait longer." "But what can I do?" she urged in her helplessness. "I admit that the delay is vexatious--Heaven knows _I_ have felt it so," she added, with a burst of feeling that would not be suppressed--"but the money _is there_; it will very shortly be forthcoming, and then it will be paid." "Yes, I have pointed out all this to them;" he said, flicking a speck of dirt off his coat. "I--I suppose there is no foreign delay or obstruction, beyond the delay caused by realising the different monies?" His sudden penetrating glance at her, the hidden earnestness of his tone, told Sara that this was a question of importance to him. It was nearly the only point throughout the interview which had not borne to her ear and eye a vague and indefinite idea of something untruthful: untruthful in himself, his voice, and his words. Possibly he had sought the personal interview with the sole view of ascertaining this solitary fact. An impression that it was so passed rapidly through her mind. "Let me thoroughly understand you;" she said, following her own thoughts rather than his words. "Tell me without reserve exactly what it is you wish to know, and I will answer you to the best of my power. There is no other cause for the delay, except that the monies have not been realised so quickly as they ought to have been; no other cause whatever. Were you thinking that there was?" "I?" and again the false drawling tone grated harshly on her ear. "Not I, I assure you, Miss Davenal. Those parties of whom I spoke hinted to me that with all this delay it looked as if there were no intention to pay the money. Of course, I knew that it was nothing of the sort; that the money _must_ be paid." "The very day that the money reaches me it will be paid to you, according to the instructions of my father, Dr. Davenal," she said, impressively. "I beg you to believe this; and to convey the assurance of it to them." "I will do so. How much longer do you suppose the delay will extend? Can you fix any definite date for the payment?" "I wish I could. But you see it does not rest with me. A very, very short period now will, I believe, see it settled." Mr. Alfred King mused. "I will inform them of what you say, Miss Davenal, and I do trust the period may be a short one. If protracted, I cannot answer for it that they would remain passive." "They must be cruel men to wish to harm Captain Davenal!"