“I wonder whether Mr. Marrable could help us?” Then in a different tone, “Won’t you see Mr. Bradfield? Won’t you ask him for an explanation? He has been kind to mamma and me. I don’t want to think he is so wicked as to have known that you were sane! And yet——”
She thought of the drugged wine, of the fire, and she shuddered.
Dick interrupted her.
“I have seen him,” he said, shortly. “I have asked for an explanation. But he will give none, at least none to satisfy me.”
“And you are going to rest satisfied not to be satisfied?” cried Chris, almost with indignation.
“I don’t know what I shall do. At present I am going back to town. I had some work to do here.” He touched the little sketch which she still held in her hand. “My pastime in the days of captivity has become something more than a pastime now. I had undertaken to make a series of sketches of the sea and shore down here for a dealer——”
“Yes, yes, I know. I found that out,” said Chris, blushing at his look of tender surprise.
He kissed her again as he went on:
“But I have found that I must see my cunning old Stelfox first, and tell him what Bradfield has said. Knowing the man better than I do, he may understand better than I Bradfield’s motive for behaving generously.”
“Behaving generously?” echoed Chris, interrogatively.