“It is very good of you to come and do the old woman’s sweeping for her,” he remarked presently.
“It isn’t for an old woman, but for a young woman. And I ought to have warned you not to come so near, for she’s got scarlet fever, and you know that’s catching,” answered Nell, with a warning gesture to him to keep away.
“You’re not afraid of catching it, so why should I be?”
“Well, I have to risk it, or there would be nobody to look after her. And I wouldn’t run the risk just for nothing, as you are doing now.”
“It isn’t for nothing,” said Clifford, hotly. Then, with what seemed to him an inspiration, he added: “I want to talk to you. I want to know whom you are shielding.”
Nell started and stopped for a moment in her work again.
“Shielding! I am shielding nobody. I wouldn’t shield a thief!”
If Clifford had been as suspicious of her as he was, on the contrary, sure of her innocence, he would have had all his doubts swept away by the burst of superb pride with which she flung these words at him. It was the very tone he had wished to hear in her, the very scornful utterance of the pure soul, capable of no wrong. It made the whole matter more mysterious, but it soothed him. He heaved a great sigh, and, in spite of her warning gestures, came nearer.
“Nell,” he said, “I had been waiting to hear you speak like that. Those are the very words I have been longing for you to say.”
“Well, now they are said, you had better go back to Stroan to your friends,” said she, coolly. “And try to persuade them to take your view of the story. For certainly it will be all over the place by this time that Nell Claris is a thief, or the accomplice of a thief.”