Mr. Peter McGrew,
If you're not out of that before the end of the month, but stay there doing things for them infernal blackguards, your goose is cooked. So now you know all about it.
From yours,
Moonlight.
Edith attempted to laugh at this letter, but Peter made her understand that it was no laughing matter.
"I've a married darter in Dublin who won't see her father shot down that way if she knows it."
"You had better take it to papa, then, and give him warning," said Edith.
But this Peter declined to do on the spur of the moment, seeming to be equally afraid of his master and of Captain Moonlight.
"If I'd the Captain here, he'd tell me what I ought to do." The Captain was always Captain Clayton.
"He is coming here to-morrow, and I will show him the letter," said Edith. But she did not on that account scruple to tell her father at once.
"He can go if he likes it," said Mr. Jones, and that was all that Mr. Jones said on the subject.
This was the third visit that the Captain had paid to Morony Castle since the terrible events of the late trial. And it must be understood that he had not spoken a word to either of the two girls since the moment in which he had ventured to squeeze Edith's hand with a tighter grasp than he had given to her sister. They, between them, had discussed him and his character often; but had come to no understanding respecting him.
Ada had declared that Edith should be his, and had in some degree recovered from the paroxysm of sorrow which had first oppressed her. But Edith had refused altogether to look at the matter in that light. "It was quite out of the question," she said, "and so Captain Clayton would feel it. If you don't hold your tongue, Ada," she said, "I shall think you're a brute."