The name had almost broken from his lips, but he checked it promptly, and pushing his empty glass toward her, looked smilingly in her face, and said, "I was afraid you had forgotten me."
There was a subtle thrill of persuasion in his voice, some meaning far deeper than his words, that turned the girl's averted look to his own.
"No," she answered, almost in a whisper, "it is not me that forgets."
Dick breathed again; a tone of reproach had broken through the hard composure of her first speech. In reaching forth his cup he managed to touch the girl's hand. She drew it back with a jerk, and flashing a wrathful glance at him left the room.
Meantime the conversation had been going on among the other occupants of the room.
"The doctor says that it may go hard with Jessup. One was saying, 'the ball went clear through him.' As for the young master—".
"Ah, he will be all right in a day or two. There was no great hurt; nothing but a blow on the head, which laid him out stark a while, and left him crazy as a loon; but that is nothing like a hole through the body."
"If Jessup should die, now," said another.
"Why, then, there would be a sharp lookout for the murderer. Now Sir Noel will have nothing done."
"There may be a reason for that," said Storms, coming forward, and speaking in a sinister whisper.