"This is detestable," the old gentleman locked his jaws. "It's positively dangerous for that dear girl to go about! I shall not let her leave Bob's place without some of the hounds!"
"Hounds wouldn't amount to anything. If she tried to set them on anyone, they'd think it was a cast and be off!" Then quietly added: "I've wired home for an airedale terrier. With him as her friend, she can go anywhere!"
"That is most thoughtful," the old gentleman murmured. "But, Brent, that damned half-wit will take savage delight in spreading his story—" the Colonel gritted his teeth and could not finish.
"I hardly think so," Brent reassured him. "It just happens that I've placed him in a most superstitious dread of me—through a little encounter we had because of an attempt Tom Hewlet made to blackmail me. Though I mention this in confidence, sir."
"Blackmail! Why, Brent, what does this mean? I feel as though I were dreaming!" But a deeper anxiety came into his eyes as he recalled some whisperings of two months back.
"Don't let it worry you. It has been cooked by proper threats of the penitentiary—" He stopped short, becoming for the first time aware of Aunt Timmie's presence as she was taking up the goblets with more than necessary deliberation. When she left, he added: "Anyway, what I started out to say is, Tusk will keep his mouth shut forever after I get hold of him. I looked for him in town, and at his half finished cabin, but he wasn't around. So I'll try again today."
"Do you really think you can stop this?" the Colonel leaned hopefully forward.
"I know it, unless Tom has successfully disillusioned his mind about my being a devil."
"A matter which would doubtless require more eloquence than Tom possesses," the old gentleman's eyes twinkled: but he added in the former serious voice: "If you can't, sir, I—I shall have his life! I will, sir!—by God, sir. I will!"
Dale had come quietly to the French window. At his place in the library, where he had been poring over books, the conversation could have been heard, but none of it drew his attention until the Colonel's first outburst of rage. He stood now, looking calmly down at the old gentleman's flushed face, then stepped out and approached them.