"Please!"
"Better not, old girl. I may have to cover a lot of ground before I find what I'm looking for, and the traveling will be rough. It's better for me to go alone."
Faith did not press. She recognized the truth of what he said. But she realized as they rode down out of the hills what a difference already his absence would make in her life.
CHAPTER XXIX
SUDDEN DEATH
Though Godfrey French's habits could not be called studious his private room was known as his "study," which possibly was as good as any other name. The furnishings of the room were of comfortable solidity. Since the room served as an office in which he transacted such business as he had, there was a desk with many pigeon holes, and backed against the wall stood a small safe.
Outside it was dark, and the rising wind was beginning to sigh with a promise of breeding weather. But in the study, lit by a shade lamp, its owner and Mr. Braden were comfortably seated. Beside them stood a small table bearing a decanter, a siphon and a box of cigars.
Mr. Braden helped himself to the whiskey. His drinking was strictly private, but he indulged rather more frequently than of old, and in larger doses. Somehow he seemed to require them. As for Godfrey French, he took his Scotch as he took his tea, as he had been taking it all his life, and with no more visible effect.
But as Mr. Braden looked at French he seemed to have aged in the last few weeks. The features seemed more prominent, the keen face leaner and more deeply lined, the cold, blue eyes more weary and more cynical.