His hand was clear of the threadbare coat now; something glinted in it, and I looked into the muzzle of a pistol. But Geoffrey Ormond, in spite of his surface languidness, was quick of thought and action, and with swift dexterity gripped his right arm from behind. Then, and we were never quite sure how it happened, though the weapon was evidently a cheap Belgian revolver, and perhaps the hammer shook down, there was a ringing crash, a cry from Grace, a tinkle of falling glass, and Adam Lee stood empty-handed, while Ormond, who flung down the smoking weapon, said coolly:
“It is safer with me. These things are dangerous to people who don’t understand them, and you may be thankful that, without perhaps intending it, you are not a murderer.”
“Thank you, Geoffrey,” said Colonel Carrington. “Lee, sit down. I don’t know what your religious or political crazes are, and it doesn’t matter, but I have rather more power here than an English magistrate, and if you move again, by the Lord I’ll send you in irons to Winnipeg for attempted murder. Mr. Lorimer, I am not inclined to thank you, but if you have any explanation you had better give it to him.”
Lee, I learned, was a fearless man, with the full courage of his somewhat curious convictions, but there were few who could withstand Colonel Carrington, and, half-dazed, 99 half-savage, he did his bidding, while again every eye in the room was turned upon me.
“Minnie Lee was certainly employed in my uncle’s mill in Lancashire,” I said slowly, “but on my word of honor nothing ever passed between us that all the world might not hear. She married a former clerk there, one Thomas Fletcher, secretly, and at present lives with him at the Willow Lake creamery. I met her for the first time in Canada at the Elktail hotel, where she was a waitress, and at her request helped to find her husband the situation. She promised to write home, but evidently did not do so.”
“It is perfectly true,” said Harry. “I was present at that meeting. If our visitor has any doubts on the subject he has only to ride over there and see.”
Lee gasped for breath, recovered himself, and strode toward me with fingers trembling and his eyes blood-shot.
“Is it true?” he said. “I know thy vain pride in an honor that can stoop to steal the honor of the poor; it is only women to whom thy kind tell lies. Here, before these witnesses, tell me again, is it Gospel true?”
He seemed half-crazed by excitement and over-fatigue, while his relief was evidently tempered by a fear that we might yet be bent on duping him; but I pitied him in all sincerity, for whatever were his foibles it was evident that this broken-down wreck of humanity with the warped intellect loved his daughter, and as I wondered what would most quickly set his mind at rest Harry said stiffly:
“We do not lie to any one, and we are poor men, too. At least we work for a bare living harder than many English poor. On his friend’s word as—well, in deference to your prejudices, we’ll say an honest man—Mr. Lorimer has told you nothing but the truth. You will find Mrs. Fletcher safe and well at the Willow Lake creamery.” 100