“Mustn’t kiss and tell, guv’nor,” said Claud, with a sickly grin.
“Look here,” said Wilton huskily. “There are a hundred and fifty thousand pounds at stake, my boy. Was it Kate?”
“No, father,” cried the young man earnestly; “it wasn’t, ’pon my soul.”
“Am I to believe you?”
“Look here, guv’nor, do you think I want to fool this money away? What good should I be doing by pretending I hadn’t carried her off? I told you I’d have done it like a shot if I had had the chance; and what’s more, you’d have liked it, so long as I had got her to say yes. I did not carry her off, once for all. It was Harry Dasent, and if he has choused me out of that bit of coin, curse him, if I hang for it, I’ll break his neck!”
“Oh! Claud, Claud, my darling,” wailed Mrs Wilton, “to talk like that when your cousin’s lying cold and motionless at the bottom of that pond!”
Chapter Nineteen.
For the better part of two days Pierce Leigh went about like one who had received some terrible mental shock; and Jenny’s pleasant little rounded cheeks told the tale of the anxiety from which she suffered, while her eyes followed him wistfully, and she seemed never weary of trying to perform little offices for him which would distract his attention from the thoughts which were sapping his vitality.