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He leaned forward a little, his blue eyes lifted to her face. "Your final word, Miss Trelevan?" he asked her, in his cool, easy twang. She wrung her hands together with an unconscious gesture of despair. "Yes," she said; and added feverishly: "of course." "You think you've met the right man?" he pursued, his tone one of gentle inquiry, as if he were speaking to a child. She nodded.
"I could arrange it if you cared to go," said Hill. "Could you? How kind of you! But it would mean spending the night at Trelevan, wouldn't it? I I think we are too busy for that." Dot glanced at her brother in some uncertainty. "Oh, it could be managed," said Jack, kindly. "Why not? You don't get much fun in life. If you want to see the mine, and Hill can arrange it, it shall be done."
You must let me come and help you sometimes just for a holiday." Her voice trembled. He kissed her again with great tenderness. "You'll come just whenever you feel like it, my dear," he said. "And God bless you!" On account of its comparative proximity to the gold mine, Trelevan, though of no great size, was a busy place.
Dot had stayed at the hotel there with her brother on one or two occasions, but it was usually noisy and crowded, and, unlike Adela, she found little to amuse her in the type of men who thronged it. Fletcher Hill always stayed there when he came to Trelevan.
A rough track led to it, winding some twenty feet above the stream, and up this track Fletcher Hill drove the two visitors on the evening of the day succeeding their arrival at Trelevan. There was a deadness of atmosphere between those rocky walls that struck chill even to Adela's inconsequent soul. "What a ghastly place!" she commented.
No one can say you're an idler, anyway. I've got rather a nice supper for you. I shouldn't wonder if Fletcher Hill turns up to share it. I hear he is on circuit at Trelevan." "I heard it, too," said Jack. "He's practically sure to come." "He's very persistent," said Adela. "Do you think he will ever win out?" Jack nodded slowly.
She was in the best of spirits on the evening of their arrival at Trelevan. The rooms that Fletcher Hill had managed to secure for them led out of each other, and the smaller of them, Dot's looked out over the busiest part of the town. As Adela pointed out, this was an advantage of little value at night, and it could be shared in the daytime. Dot said nothing.
By some remarkable means, Dick Kenyon had managed to get the best of the encounter. Not the next day, nor the next, did Violet Trelevan summon up courage to face her outraged lover, and ask for her freedom. Jerry did not tell her precisely what had passed, but she gathered from the information he vouchsafed that Kenyon had not treated the matter peaceably.
Fletcher Hill's play was not well known at Trelevan, but at the very outset it was evident to the most casual observer that he was a skilled player. He spoke scarcely at all, and his face was masklike in its composure, but Dot, watching, knew with that intuition which of late had begun to grow upon her that he was grimly set upon obtaining the victory.
It was Fletcher Hill who meted out punishment to the transgressors who were brought before him at the police-court at Trelevan, and his treatment was usually swift and unsparing. No prisoner ever expected mercy from him. He was hated at the mine with a fierce hatred, in which Fortescue had but a very minor share.
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