“Do you think you can make me tell you? If you were to kill me, I wouldn’t tell you unless I chose!”—and she shook herself free with a violence which sent him staggering a few paces.
He changed his tactics.
“Don’t be silly, Lil. You know I didn’t mean to hurt you; and, if we did come to blows, you would be just as likely to hurt me. But do tell me where Miss Lane is.”
“She’s gone.”
“Gone! Alone?”
“No. Stephen has gone with her; and it was I who sent him,” said she, defiantly.
“Oh, to annoy me, I suppose?”
“Partly, perhaps—you and George. I thought there had been quite fuss enough made about the little governess, and I thought that Stephen, being a cripple, and, therefore, not quite so rough as you, would make her a safer escort.”
Without a word in answer, Harry gave her a sharp box on the ear, and swung himself into the hall over the balusters, dashed into the garden, and plunging into a shrubbery to a short cut to the road, came out scratched and breathless a few yards behind Miss Lane and Stephen.
“You had better go in, Stephen, or you’ll make your cold worse. I’ll see Miss Lane safely home,” said he, abruptly.