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Conniston giggled, his amusement swelling in pace with Hapgood's dawning discomfiture. "I told you I had made a bet. I have laid a wager with the Fates. And right now, my dear Roger, while we sit comfortably and smoke and wait, the Fates are deciding things for us!" Roger paused, regarding him. "Yes, you're drunk. If you are not, is it asking too much to suggest that you explain?" "No.
Madelon pleaded; but he smiled back at her unmoved. Jonas Hapgood's great body shook with mirth. "Likely story a gal did it," he chuckled. "I did do it!" returned Madelon, fiercely, turning to him. "I guess you don't want your beau hung." "I tell you I killed this man. I am the one to be hung!" The sheriff turned to David Hautville.
Hapgood's kind of man awaited the return of his wife and daughter with considerable uneasiness. Hapgood, in his capacity as trained, capable, aristocratic servant, had been a favorite of Serena's. The captain dreaded telling his wife what, in the heat of his anger, he had done. But his dread was needless.
Some apprehension of the odd affair that it was was characteristic of Mark Sabre's habit of mind, increasingly with the years, with Mabel. Penny Green "picturesque, quaint if ever a place was", in garrulous Mr. Hapgood's words lies in a shallow depression, in shape like a narrow meat dish. It runs east and west, and slightly tilted from north to south.
Hapgood got down and saddled his own horse, and it was Hapgood who, riding with Lonesome Pete, led a stubborn animal that jerked back until both of Hapgood's arms were sore in their sockets. Lonesome Pete, the forgetful, remembered after an hour or two of quiet enjoyment to tell the tenderfoot that he could tie the rope to the buckboard instead of holding it.
But Serena, too, refused to consider Mr. Hapgood's re-employment. She had talked with Azuba, and Azuba had declared that she should leave in "just about two-thirds of a jiffy" if the butler came back. "When he comes into my kitchen," she said, "I get out. I should hate to quit the folks I'd worked for the biggest part of my life, but there's some things I won't stand. He's one of 'em.
To-day his horse a spirited colt newly broken was not content to go straight ahead as Hapgood would have had him, but danced back and forth across the road, shied at every conceivable opportunity, threatening constantly to unseat his rider, and jerked at the restraining, tight-gathered reins until Hapgood's arms ached.
Hapgood's bluster collapsed, like a punctured toy balloon. He cringed instead. "W'y, sir," he pleaded, "it wasn't anything. I lost my temper a bit, sir, that's all. She" with a malignant snarl at Azuba "she's got a letter of mine. She stole it and won't give it up. I was angry, sir, same as any man would 'ave been, and I forgot myself. Make 'er 'and over my letter, sir."
He was fairly sure that he was still there because he had received a letter from him just the day before asking that something he had left behind should be sent him to that point, which was done. As soon as the Record Office was open in the morning Mr. Emerson and Roger went there. "We might as well check up on Hapgood's investigations," said Mr. Emerson.
Hapgood's face, seen now clearly, was as smug as ever, but there had been wrought in it a subtle change. In place of the fresh, pink complexion, the desert had given him a healthy coat of tan. But that, while Conniston was quick to note it, was not the change that startled him.
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