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He waylaid me on every possible occasion, holding over me a covert threat of the exposure of my escapade, till at last I was absolutely afraid to go outside the house for fear of meeting him." "He wanted to marry you?" Gifford suggested. Edith Morriston gave a little shudder. "I suppose so. He was always making love to me, and was quite impervious to snubbing.
And she could not have seen very clearly." "But," Gifford argued gently, "her statement is confirmed by the finding of the rope." Edith Morriston was thinking strenuously, desperately, he could see that. The words she spoke were but mechanical, the mere froth of a seething brain.
Look!" he said in a breathless whisper, pointing to the floor beneath the window through which the deep orange light of the declining sun was streaming. An exclamation came from Kelson as he saw the object which Morriston indicated, and he turned with a stupefied look to Gifford. "My !" Gifford's teeth were set and he fell a step backward as though in repulsion.
I cannot bear it. Oh, let me go." She seemed now in an agony of fear. Gifford laid his hand on her as she sought to move away towards the gate and the waiting enemy. "Miss Morriston," he said with decision, "you must not go; you must have no more communication with this man Henshaw. He can prove nothing against you, while I can prove everything in your favour."
Morriston went forward to him, and after they had spoken together he turned round, and with an "Excuse me for a few minutes," went off towards the house with the butler. So at last the opportunity had come. Gifford glanced at his companion and noticed that her face had gone a shade paler than before the interruption.
Richard Morriston was a pleasant-looking man of about five or six-and-thirty, the last man, Gifford thought, he would bear a grudge against for possessing the old home of the Giffords. "I'm afraid you must look upon me rather in the light of an intruder here," Morriston said pleasantly. "A very acceptable one so far as I am concerned," Gifford responded with something more than empty civility.
"Miss Morriston and I have been enjoying the view and the air of the pines." The commonplace remark naturally, as it was intended, went for nothing. Henshaw affected not to notice it. "I am glad I have come across you, Miss Morriston," he said, with an evident curbing of his chagrin, "as I have something rather important to say to you." "I am afraid I cannot hear it now, Mr.
"During the short time we were together our talk was quite commonplace, mostly of the changes in the county." "Did he, Henshaw, know it formerly?" Morriston asked with some surprise. "Oh, yes," Miss Elyot answered, "he used to stay with some people over at Lamberton; you remember the Peltons, Muriel?" she turned to Miss Tredworth. "Of course you do." "Oh, yes," Muriel Tredworth answered.
Edith Morriston drew in a deep breath as Gifford ceased speaking. "It is very kind and chivalrous of you, Mr. Gifford," she said in a low voice, "to run this risk for me, although your telling me the story shall never involve you in danger." "I am ready for your sake to face any danger the telling of my secret may hold for me," he responded firmly.
In the obscurity, not quite as impenetrable as that out of which I looked, I could distinguish the tall figure of the girl in a dark ball-dress, and facing her, towards me, the big form of Henshaw." "You had no idea who the lady was?" Edith Morriston interrupted him to ask. "Naturally not the vaguest," Gifford answered. "When I had gone as far as was safe, I set myself to listen again.
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