What did she mean?
A sudden, wild hope entered the heart of the schemer. He was making even better progress than he had anticipated.
"You will, you must hear my explanation of that scene in the garden," persisted he. "If you can scorn and cast me aside after you know the truth then I am willing to go."
Rose sank to a seat.
She had been standing, up to this moment, but now she felt strangely weak and unsteady. He, however, refused to be seated until, as he said, he made his peace with her.
Their interview had a witness suspected by neither.
Miss Williams, piqued at the attentions her cousin received, resolved to play the eavesdropper, and so she crouched in the hall at the parlor door and listened to every word that fell from the lips of the gentleman visitor.
Although Miss Williams was not the brightest female in the world, she was far removed from a fool, and soon she learned enough to convince her that the outlaw, August Bordine, was in the parlor.
This discovery was one which agitated the old maid not a little.
She remembered the immensity of the reward offered for this man, and realized that if she could win a portion of it, it would be of wonderful help to her as a matter of pin-money, and it might influence some man to take pity on her single state and propose.