This agency undertook to solve the three complex issues involved, convinced that these were so interwoven as to form one web. Skillful assistants were intrusted with particular lines of investigation. Double shifts were employed in watching each of the Laniers. A trusted lieutenant, skilled in intricate work, was sent to India.
Sir Donald keenly felt the unpleasant notoriety. He had been attacked at the most sensitive, vital point of his nature. Never before had he experienced any sense of social ostracism. No thought of family shame ever had suffused his cheek. And his beloved Esther! This motherless girl, whose clinging, obedient love and trusting dependence had wound their silken tendrils around every pulsing fiber of his soul!
That penny-liners could make coarse reference or express vague innuendo about this pure-minded, sensitive girl seemed horrible. He could have trampled to death such offenders with deliberate fury, yet this vengeance but more surely would crush Esther's hopes. For her sake he must be patient. Time, property, and every available means will find employment in her vindication. There shall be permitted no maudlin sentiment of pity in this undertaking. Certain retribution shall be whetted by each delay.
This former impersonation of complacent optimism, acquiescing in all human experiences as special essentials of the infinite plan, shrinks from such crucial test. This is surely a noted exception. A daughter's tender heartstrings are too sensitive for such stoic touch.
Sir Donald chafes at slow processes of retributive justice. How tardy the infinitesimal grind! Would that the wheels speed their lagging momentum!
The former Sir Donald Randolph is changed. His old philosophical, speculative, idealistic bent is as completely in abeyance as though stricken with rudimentary palsy. In their stead is an alert, untiring, relentless Nemesis, more pitiless because of intense, novel zeal.
But Sir Donald is handicapped. Not that time or money is lacking. These are available. What about Esther? Her comment upon the absence of Oswald and Alice that night had been painfully distinct. The unmistaken, mute language of her eyes and quivering lips was clearer. Her pretty, persistent dissembling was confirmation. Subsequent suspicious innuendoes had aggravated her feelings. He asks himself: "Shall I neglect this troubled child to engage in ferreting out crime? Why should Esther's sorrows merit her father's neglect?"