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You had ample time and opportunity." "But I still have one man who loves me a man who will yet stand my friend and defend me, even against you!" "Walter Murie!" he laughed, with a quick gesture of disregard. "You believe him to be your friend? Recollect, my dear Gabrielle, that men are deceivers ever." "So it seems in your case," she exclaimed with poignant bitterness.
"Ah," laughed the old gentleman a trifle uneasily, "and so you've discovered the truth at last, eh?" "The truth no!" Murie said. "That is just what we are so very anxious to hear from you, Sir Henry." "Well," he said, "you may rest your minds perfectly content that there's nothing supernatural about them.
"Ah, you're not a cosmopolitan nor a financier, or you would know the thousand-and-one strings which are pulled by Conrad de Hetzendorf, or the curious stories afloat concerning him." "Curious stories!" echoed Murie. "Tell me some. I'm always interested in anything mysterious." Hamilton was silent for a few moments.
Among them, in a plain silver frame, was the picture of Walter Murie taken in New York only a few weeks before. Upon the frame was engraved, "Gabrielle, from Walter." She took it in her hand, and stood for a long time motionless. Never again, alas! would she look upon that face so dear to her. Her young heart was already broken, because she was held fettered and powerless.
I called upon them to release her, for she was little more than a child; and, as they did not, I shot two of the men. The third shot and plugged me rather badly in the leg; but I had the satisfaction that my shots attracted my Cossack companions, who, coming quickly on the spot, killed all three of the girl's assailants, and released her." "By Jove!" laughed Murie. "Was she pretty?"
"As we are speaking here in the strictest privacy, I will tell you something which I beg that neither of you will repeat. If you do it might result in my ruin." Murie, Hamilton, and Gabrielle all gave their promise. "Then it is this," he said.
Now, amid those ruins strange noises are sometimes heard, and it is said that upon all who hear them falls some terrible calamity. I'm not superstitious, but I've heard them on three occasions! And somehow well, somehow I cannot get rid of an uncanny feeling that some catastrophe is to befall me! I can't go back to Semlin. I'm unnerved, and dare not return there." "Noises!" cried Walter Murie.
Sir George Murie and Sir Henry Heyburn were close friends; therefore it was but natural that Walter, the heir to the Connachan estate, and Gabrielle should often be thrown into each other's company, or perhaps that the young man who for the past twelve months had been absent on a tour round the world should have loved her ever since the days when she wore short skirts and her hair down her back.
"You know you have quite a lot to do, and when your mother has gone we'll spend an hour or two here at work." "I hear that Walter Murie is at home again at Connachan. Hill told me this morning," remarked her father. "So I heard also," answered the girl. "And yet you are not going to the ball, Gabrielle, eh?" laughed the old man mischievously.
Young Murie had, of course, heard from his mother the story told by Lady Heyburn concerning the offence of her stepdaughter. But he would not believe a single word against her. They had been strolling slowly, and she had been speaking expressing her heartfelt thanks for his action in taking her from that life of awful monotony at Woodnewton.
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