"Then she could not have got the money yesterday, if she wished to
withdraw it; she must have been in London this morning!"
"Perhaps," said Estelle. "But then! Look at the letter. She says if I am
her friend, I will not seek to know where she is."
"But that does not apply to me," he retorted--while his brain was filled
with all kinds of wild guesses as to whither Nina had fled.
"You are not her friend?" Estelle said, quietly.
"If I could only see her for three minutes!" he said, in his despair, as
he rose and went to the window. "Why should she go away from her friends
if she is in trouble? Besides ourselves and the people in the theatre,
she knows no one in this country. If she goes away back to her
acquaintances in Italy, she will not say a word; she will have no
sympathy, no distraction of any kind; and all the success she has gained
here will be as good as lost. It is like Nina to say she blames no one;
but her sending me back those bits of jewelry tells me who is to
blame--"
Estelle hesitated.
"Can I say?" she said, in rather low tones, and her eyes were cast down.
"Is it not breaking confidence? But Nina was speaking of you--she took
me into the shop in Piccadilly to show me the beautiful gold cup--and
when I said to her, 'It is another present soon--it is a wedding-ring
soon he will give you--'"
"Then it is you who have been putting those fancies into her head!" he
said, turning to her.
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