He looked round fearfully from side to side, peering under his white eyebrows at a clump of bushes which might conceal an eavesdropper.
“Ever been in quod?”
She did not recognize the word.
“I have,” he went on. “Quod’s prison, miss. Naturally you wouldn’t understand them words.”
Again he looked round.
“Suppose you was me. . . . It all comes to that question—suppose you was me!”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mr. Maitland.”
She watched his frightened scrutiny of the grounds, and then he bent over toward her.
“Them fellows will get me,” he said slowly and impressively. “They’ll get me, and Matilda. And I’ve left all my money to a certain person. That’s the joke. That’s the whole joke of it, miss.” He chuckled wheezily. “And then they’ll get him.”
He slapped his knee, convulsed with silent laughter, and the girl honestly thought he was mad and edged away from him.