“A little nearer the end.”
Hardcastle had driven pity out of his life, had bruised it with his heel at every turn. He was impatient to find it stirring faintly now.
“I wish Logie was a safer lodging for you. You’ve trouble enough of your own.”
The note in his voice, the haunted look that showed in his eyes for a moment and was gone, told her of some encounter on the road to-night.
“Is it Long Murgatroyd again, with a rope across the highway?”
“What do you know of that?” he snapped.
“Oh, you hid the news well enough, but gossip brought it. What happened to-night as you rode from Norbrigg?”
“Nothing that mattered—for me. But for you and Donald——”
“It matters for all of us, or none,” she broke in, her glance questioning and steady.
“No,” he said roughly. “The end for Logie is sure, so far as I can see. But I’d hoped the house would last Donald’s time. He’s earned a peaceful end.”