"I canna luke at ye! I winna luke at ye! I hae lukit at ye ower muckle for my ain gude already!" cried the girl, cowering under the clothes.
"See here, lass? I say that you are utterly wrong! I had no connection whatever with the death of the banker! I would not have hurt a hair of his gray head for all that he was worth! Come! I answer you seriously and kindly, although your grotesque and horrible suspicion deserves about equally to be laughed at or punished. Come, look into my face now and see whether I am not telling you the truth."
"And sae ye did na do the deed?" she inquired at length, uncovering her head and showing a pale affrighted face.
"My poor lass, how terrified you have been! No, of course, I did not. But how came you to know anything about that horrible affair?"
Rose took up the morning paper and put it in his hands.
"Ah! confound the press!" muttered the man between his teeth.
"What did ye say?"
"These papers, with their ghastly accounts of murders, are nuisances, Rose!"
"Ay sae they be! But ye didna do the deed?"
The man made a gesture of impatience.