“The d——l she did!” exclaimed Mr. Bradfield, in amazement. “And hadn’t you the sense to tell her that the suggestion was like her cheek?”
“Why, no, John,” returned Marrable, just as gently as ever. “I didn’t tell her that, for I thought myself it wasn’t a bad idea.”
There was a pause, during which John Bradfield, considered the downcast, hang-dog face of the other, while his own grew perceptibly paler.
“Why?” he presently asked.
“Oh, I’m sure I don’t want to make myself unpleasant in any way, John, but it seemed so odd to find Gilbert Wryde’s son here, shut up as a lunatic——”
John Bradfield shivered. And the look he cast at the other was not pleasant to see.
“Do you mean to suggest that you had any reason for thinking that he was not a lunatic?”
Marrable’s answer came quickly. He was evidently anxious to get it out before he got afraid to say it:
“Well, I should like to see him, that’s all.”
“You haven’t heard, then, about the fire down here? He overturned his lamp, set fire to the place, and was burnt alive.”