It was extraordinary that she should be able to make that grey pallor come over her cheeks as though the meaning of what he said were only now entering her mind; wonderful that she should be able so well to give the idea of a great horror and a great doubt coming slowly into her startled eyes.
“Mr. Clive?” she said again.
“Yes, he's been killed,” Dunn said. “By poachers, apparently.”
“What is that? What is that man saying?” shrilled Mrs. Dawson from behind. “Mr. Clive—John—why, he was here yesterday.”
Dunn turned his back and walked away. He heard Ella call after him, but he would not look back because he feared what he might do if he obeyed her call.
With an odd buzzing in his ears, with the blood throbbing through his brain as though something must soon break there, he walked blindly on, and as he came to the gate of Bittermeads he saw a motor-car coming up the road.
It was Deede Dawson's car, and he was driving it, and by his side sat a sulkily-smiling stranger, his air that of one not sure of his welcome, but determined to enforce it, in whom, with a quick start, Dunn recognized his burglar, the man whose attempt to break into Bittermeads he had frustrated, and whose place he had taken.
He put up his hand instinctively for them to stop, and Deede Dawson at once obeyed the gesture.
Dunn noticed that the smile upon his lips was more gentle and winning than ever, the look in his eyes more dark and menacing.
“Well, Dunn, what is it?” he said as pleasantly as he always spoke. “Mr. Allen,” he added to his companion, “this is my man, Dunn, I told you about, my gardener and chauffeur, and a very industrious steady fellow—and quite trustworthy.”