“But you will if he does?” pleaded St. George, the thought of his boy's loneliness overmastering every other feeling.
“But he won't, I tell you—never—NEVER!”
“But if he should, my child? If—”
He stopped and raised his head. Willits stood gazing down at them, searching St. George's face, as if to learn the meaning of the conference: he knew that he did not favor his suit.
Kate looked up and her face flushed.
“Yes—in one minute, Mr. Willits,” and without a word of any kind to St. George she rose from the sofa and with her arm in Willits's left the room.
CHAPTER XXIV
One winter evening some weeks after St. George's departure, Pawson sat before a smouldering fire in Temple's front room, reading by the light of a low lamp. He had rearranged the furniture—what was left of it—both in this and the adjoining room, in the expectation that Fogbin (Gorsuch's attorney) would move in, but so far he had not appeared, nor had any word come from either Gorsuch or Colonel Rutter; nor had any one either written or called upon him in regard to the overdue payment; neither had any legal papers been served.
This prolonged and ominous silence disturbed him; so much so that he had made it a point to be as much in his office as possible should his enemy spring any unexpected trap.