Whimple gave a gasp and dropped his eyes.
“Sir,” he muttered piteously—“I thought you would never know, or, knowing, never mind. She—she—it would break her heart to part with them altogether. They are abominations to you and me——”
“You can leave yourself out of the question, fellow. I don’t concern myself with the quality of your emotions.”
The other twined his nervous fingers together over the bucket handle. Suddenly he spoke up, with a flushed face.
“If they are to go, sir, I would rather take the girl, with all her cranks and fancies, and do my best to seek a living elsewhere.”
The baronet looked hard at the poor baited creature.
“Am I losing touch of humanity in face of a little botheration?” he thought. Then he added aloud, with a spirit of scorn: “Words, words! But you would force me again into being the agent of your self-martyrdom. It won’t do, my friend. The lodge may serve as museum until it is pulled down. I see at least that the most disgusting item of the collection has vanished.”
“The skull, sir? Yes, it is gone.”
They laboured at their task once more; and once more Mr. Tuke fell into profound musing over the perplexities of his later lot. In this connection were two matters for worrying consideration—two flails that beat up the dust of his mind in the absence of any sound grain of evidence.
Of these, the first was a certain hyperbolic expression used and reiterated by yesterday’s rogue—a preposterous inquiry that had yet seemed instinct with a subtle undermeaning, and, so weighted, had sung and buzzed ever since in the eavesdropper’s brain.