“Do you know if he ever had an enemy?”
Beatrice looked up quickly into his pale face.
“Why do you ask?”
“That is my affair. I do not ask without a reason. Think before you answer—if you can.”
“Randolph was always such a favourite,” she began, but was interrupted by a quick impatient gesture from Tom.
“Don’t chatter,” he said, almost rudely, “think!”
Oddly enough this brusque reminder did not offend her. She saw that Tom’s nerves were all on edge, that they were strung to a painful pitch of tension. She began to catch some of his earnestness and determination.
Beatrice was taken out of herself, and from that moment her manner changed for the better. She thought the matter over in silence.
“I have heard that Sir Conrad Fitzgerald had an old grudge against him.”
“Ah!” breathed Tom softly.