United States or Liechtenstein ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He laughed as he spoke, and yet something remarkably like a sigh followed the laugh, and for a moment after he had ceased speaking his eye looked abstractedly into space. Before either spoke again, the door opened and the clerk, seeing Mr. Rattar was still engaged, murmured a "beg pardon" and was about to retire again. "What is it?" asked the lawyer. "Miss Farmond is waiting to see you, sir."
"I can't honestly see why you should make such a mystery of it especially as I can guess the truth perfectly easily!" "If you can guess it " he began. "Oh please don't answer me like that! Why won't you tell me?" He seemed to consider the point for a moment, and then he said: "I am not at all sure that I am at liberty to tell you, Miss Farmond, without further consultation."
"I haven't met Sir Malcolm," said Carrington, wiping his eyeglass on his handkerchief. "I can't judge of him. What sort of a fellow is he?" "A bit of a young squirt," said Ned candidly. "But I'll not believe he's a murderer till I get some proof of it." "And Miss Farmond? Is she at all a murderous lady?"
He jotted this down in his pocket book, and then as he was leaving he said confidentially: "You tell me that you think Sir Malcolm is interested in Miss Farmond, though she seemed not so keen on him?" "That was the way of it to my thinking," said Bisset. "And what deduction would you draw from that, sir?"
"I hardly like to repeat it, sir; it's that cruel and untrue. They're saying Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond had got engaged to be married." "Well?" said Ned sharply, and he seemed to control his feelings with an effort. "A secret engagement, like, that Sir Reginald would never have allowed. But there I think they're right, sir.
"Well, the plain truth is, sir, that her ladyship has been keeping sae much to herself that it's not rightly possible to tell what's been in her mind. But it was the afternoon when Mr. Rattar had been at the house that she sent for Miss Farmond and tellt her then she was wanting her to stop on." "That would be after she knew the contents of the will!
"N no," said the fiscal, and there seemed to be a hint of reluctance in his voice. Carrington glanced at him quickly and then gazed up at the ceiling. "What sort of a girl is Miss Farmond?" he enquired next. "She is the illegitimate daughter of a brother of the late Sir Reginald's." Carrington nodded. "So I gathered from the local gossips. But that fact is hardly against her, is it?" "Why not?"
He shut the door before he answered, and then came up to the fireplace, and planted himself in front of her. "Who told you that Cicely Farmond was engaged to Malcolm Cromarty?" he demanded. She made a little grimace of comic alarm, but her eye was apprehensive. "Don't eat my head off, Neddy! How can I remember?" "You've got to remember," said her brother grimly.
Miss Cicely Farmond was standing just outside, evidently arrested by the drawn curtains. Her eyes opened very wide indeed at the sight of Mr. Carrington suddenly revealed. Her lips parted for an instant as though she would cry out, and then she hurried away. Mr. Carrington seemed more upset by this incident than one would expect from such a composed, easy-going young man.
I mentioned the engagement as a mere matter of course to somebody, and though I mentioned it confidentially, it started this slander about Malcolm Cromarty and Cicely Farmond conspiring to murder to murder, Lilian! the man of all men they owed most to. That's what you've done!" By this time Lilian Cromarty's handkerchief was at her eyes. "I I am very sorry, Ned," she murmured.
Word Of The Day