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Updated: June 1, 2025
Dale noticed the three rings on the little finger-one of gold, one of silver, one of black metal, each with tiny colored gems in it and while heartily ashamed of his rustic violence, he felt a secret contempt for its victim. "That's all right." Mr. Barradine, although still wincing, had recovered composure, and what he said now appeared to be an implied excuse for the sharpness of his protest.
"What is it, ma'am? Bad news?" "Oh, most dreadful. But perhaps a mistake. I'm to find out;" and she stared stupidly at the paper that was shaking in her fingers. Then, spreading it on her lap, she read the message aloud: "Evening paper says fatal accident to Mr. Barradine. Is this true? Wire Dale, Appledore Temperance Hotel, Stamford Street, S.E."
People said that Veale was half a gipsy, that his boys were growing up as hardy young poachers, and that every time he got drunk at the Barradine Arms he would himself produce wire nooses from his pocket, and offer to go out and snare a pheasant before the morning if anybody would pay for it in advance by another quart of ale.
Barradine had begun to take notice of her patting her, and holding her hand, and saying he admired her hair; but she had not in the least known where all this was leading. What she told Will was substantially correct as to the beginning but of course her eyes had been opened before anything definite occurred.
It was here, outside the laundry, that he saw Mavis for the first time; and although the sleeves of her print dress were rolled up and she was carrying a metal skimming dish, something ineffably refined and superior in her deportment led him to believe that she was some lesser member of the august Barradine family, and not one of its hired dependents.
Feeling as strongly as he did and since the world began, surely no one in such circumstances had ever felt quite so strongly he would seize upon the overthrow of Mr. Barradine's reputation as the obvious means of obtaining his own revenge. Then she thought of what such a scandal would mean to a gentleman of Mr. Barradine's state and status. Mr. Barradine would move heaven and earth to avert it.
It wasn't as if her ladyship had been still alive. "Sir, I hope I have not disturbed you; but I couldn't be easy till I'd cordially and heartily thanked you." Mr. Barradine had come in, and Dale fired off his brief set speeches. But instinct almost immediately told him that once more Mavis had been right and he wrong. Mr. Barradine was not expecting or desiring a personal call.
Barradine had said that he was going down to the Abbey to-morrow, or next day, Friday, at latest; and in the course of this Wednesday morning Dale decided that the interview must be delayed. It was impossible up here. It would be much easier to arrange down there. He must wait until Mr. Barradine went down to Hampshire, and go down after him.
To his right lay Vine-Pits Farm; to his left lay the Cross Roads, the Barradine Arms, the clustered cottages. He ran on, in ditch after ditch, under hedges and banks, swinging left-handed in a wide detour till he came to the last of the fields and the highroad to Old Manninglea. But he had to wait here. He saw laborers on the road, and waited till they were gone.
He and Mr. Barradine must meet somewhere quietly and comfortably, out of reach of electric bells, butlers, and police officers. That first night after the confession he slept sound and long.
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