“These things are most horrible,” exclaimed the young swell with the cigar. “Most terrible. What motive had the scoundrel? I suppose plunder.”
“Noa, it warn’t that,” said the countryman. “Leastways, I think not,” he added, drinking from his mug and setting it down upon the table with a bang. “It warn’t done for money, measter—’cos ye see the young farmer hadn’t bin robbed, so I’ve bin tould.”
“No doubt it were done out o’ spite or revenge.”
“Like enough somethink o’ that sort,” observed the man with the shade, who, after this last observation, appeared to fall into a reverie.
“And be you a stranger in these parts, measter?” asked the countryman, with provincial curiosity. “If it be a fair question, leastways?”
“Yes, I only came here this morning. I wan’t, if I can, to get——”
Nell Fulford could not remain longer passive. She bounded like a panther across the room and sprang upon the man with a horrible shriek, which rang through the apartment with appalling distinctness.
“Wretch! murdering villain! We’ve found you at last,” she cried, clasping him by the neck with superhuman force. “It be he,” she shouted, in a voice of triumph, “it be Giles Chudley!”
The room was filled in an instant.
“The woman’s mad,” exclaimed one of the newcomers, dragging her from the man.