“I beg your pardon, sir,” I said, holding out my hand. “Good-night—good-bye!”
His large firm long fingers closed tightly on mine, and held my hand prisoned so hardly that he gave me a good deal of pain.
“One minute, my lad,” he said. “Your father and mother were both English, were they not?”
The mention of them made me wince.
“Both dead, I think my sister said?”
“Yes,” I said huskily, and I tried to drag my hand away, but he held it fast.
“So you are true English?” he said; “and a pretty opinion you have of your fellow-countryman.”
“I—I don’t understand you, sir.”
“To think after you have struggled up here so pluckily, and in so manly a way, he would be such an inhuman brute as to let you go.”
“Mr Raydon!” I cried, huskily.