But Nell shook her head.
“I would never marry any one till this affair of the robberies was cleared up,” answered she, firmly.
“And can’t you help us to find it out?”
At this her face changed. She looked up at him with an expression of angry defiance.
“That is what you came down for, then—to see whether I could tell you anything, and satisfy your curiosity without your having the trouble of sending any more detectives down!” she cried, uttering the words with breathless rapidity, while her frame shook from head to foot. “No, Mr. King, I don’t know anything, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. You have begun by prying into this business your own way; you may finish it your own way, too!”
“Nell, surely you don’t think I had anything to do with that wretched business! You can’t think so—you can’t! Why, it is to warn you that I have come—to warn you that some one else may be sent. Mind, I don’t know this; I only guess it; but I thought it right that you should know.”
But instead of seeming grateful for the information, Nell evidently took it as a fresh offense.
“Why should you warn me?” she asked; and the pallor of her face gave place suddenly to a red blush of anger. “Is it that I may put a check to my larcenous propensities until he has gone away again?”
“Nell, Nell, how can you? You would not if you knew how horribly it makes me suffer!”
“Suffer! Ah, it does matter when you suffer, doesn’t it? But when it is only a country innkeeper’s niece who suffers, who cares? And yet one would have thought—one would have thought—”