“You don’t know why he is shut up?” she repeated, slowly.
“No, ma’am. I do know a little more than you do, though I don’t want to tell it yet. But why he is shut up here is more than I can tell you.”
Chris was utterly bewildered. Before she could recover sufficiently from her astonishment to put another question, Stelfox went on:
“And now, ma’am, I believe you’re interested enough in the poor gentleman to do just one thing for him?”
“Yes, oh, yes. What is it?” asked Chris, eagerly. “Is it to speak to Mr. Bradfield? Is it to try to persuade him to let Mr. Richard come out? Is it——”
Stelfox shook his head with a dry smile.
“No, ma’am, it’s precisely the opposite of that. What I wish to ask you is not to speak to Mr. Bradfield at all about him, and, above all, not to let him know that you have seen him anywhere but at the windows of the east wing.”
Chris was much troubled by this request, and after a few moments spent in thought, she said, earnestly:
“But, Stelfox, I think you are doing Mr. Bradfield a great injustice. He is a very kind-hearted man, and if he were once persuaded that it would do his ward good to come out——”
“He would keep him in all the more securely,” said Stelfox, with a dry laugh.