“I don’t know why I asked you to stay, young man,” he said. “An impulse, I suppose . . . maybe a bad conscience. I don’t give these young people all the company they ought to have at home, and I’m not much of a companion for them. It’s too bad that you should be the witness of the first family jar we’ve had for years.”
His voice and manner were those of an educated man. Dick wondered what occupation he followed, and why it should be so particularly obnoxious that he should be seeking some escape.
The girl was quiet throughout the meal. She sat at Dick’s left hand and she spoke very seldom. Stealing an occasional glance at her, he thought she looked preoccupied and troubled, and blamed his presence as the cause.
Apparently no servant was kept at the cottage. She did the waiting herself, and she had replaced the plates when the old man asked:
“I shouldn’t think you were as young as you look, Mr. Gordon—what do you do for a living?”
“I’m quite old,” smiled Dick. “Thirty-one.”
“Thirty-one?” gasped Ella, going red. “And I’ve been talking to you as though you were a child!”
“Think of me as a child at heart,” he said gravely. “As to my occupation—I’m a persecutor of thieves and murderers and bad characters generally. My name is Richard Gordon——”
The knife fell with a clatter from John Bennett’s hand and his face went white.
“Gordon—Richard Gordon?” he said hollowly.