“My father! My brother!” Lady Cranstoun murmured, with parched lips, as she staggered forward into the room. “What have you done with them?”
Looking at her, he realized that it was impossible to deceive her longer. He pushed a chair toward her, but she impatiently declined it.
“I am sorry to say,” he answered then, in those hard, level tones of his, “that your father and your brother plotted with you to disobey my orders. It is you who are to blame for the consequences.”
“Where are they?” she cried, wildly.
“Your father was mistaken for a poacher, and was accidentally shot in a scuffle——”
“Murdered! Murdered by you!” she shrieked, wringing her hands as one distraught. “My father—my poor father!”
Sir Philip laid his hand on the bell-rope.
“For three years,” he said, coldly, “I have been trying to prove to you that it is worse than useless to try to disobey my orders. This unfortunate accident will, I hope, convince you of your folly. As to the other poaching gypsy, James Carewe, I did what I could to get him off, but he had savagely assaulted one of my keepers, and has got five years for it. In future you will know better than to attempt to hold any communication with your disreputable family.”
She stared at him with distended eyes.
“In future!” she repeated, in a low, altered voice. “What have you to do with my future?”