She did not at once move. “Oh, I’ll let you pass, James,” she answered deliberately, “only I want you to understand what it means. I won’t marry you, if you do this. I don’t know that I could bring myself to marry you anyhow, now.”
She had the art of irritating her opponent, and Emmons exclaimed, “I dare say you prefer this jailbird to me.”
She did not reply in words, but she moved away from the door, and Emmons went out of it. The instant he had gone she rang the bell, and when Plimpton appeared she said: “Tell the coachman that I want a trap and the fastest horse of the pair just as quickly as he can get it. Tell him to hurry, Plimpton.”
Plimpton bowed, though he did not approve of servants being hurried. He liked orders to be given in time. Nevertheless, he gave her message, and within half an hour she was in Mr. Overton’s drawing-room. The great man greeted her warmly.
“Do you know, my dear Nellie,” he said, almost as he entered, “I was just thinking that I ought to have made an appointment to see you again. Of course you are in a hurry to get a complete schedule of your new possessions, and to know what you may count on in the future. Shall we say to-morrow—that is Saturday, isn’t it?—about three?”
“Oh, there is not the least hurry about that,” returned Nellie, and her manner was unusually agitated, “any time you like. I did not come about that. I came to ask you if you knew where Bob is—Mr. Vickers, I mean?”
“Yes,” said Overton, “I do!”
“Something dreadful has happened,” Nellie went on with less and less composure. “I have only just found it out. As soon as our interview was over, James Emmons told me he meant to telegraph to Vickers’s Crossing, or whatever the name of the place is, for a warrant. He expects to be able to arrest Mr. Vickers at once.”
“He does, does he—the hound!” cried Overton, for the first time losing his temper. He rang a bell, and when a servant answered it he ordered a trap to be ready at once. Returning to Nellie, he found that she had buried her face in her handkerchief, and he repented his violence.
“There, there, forgive me, Miss Nellie,” he said. “I did not mean to call him a hound. I forgot that you were going to marry him.”