A Traitor's Wooing

by Headon Hill

"Mees will pardon her devoted maid for saying that it is hardly a subject for jest," came her prompt rebuke. "The shoe was what you call on the other foot. Mr. Levison, he admire me greatly, but I not think ver' moosh of 'im. All the same, he tells me things, and among others he tell me who it was he going to meet on the marsh. I blame myself for not having approach the police about it, and I desire to ask you, mees, if it is now too late."

Violet grew suddenly grave. A responsibility was being thrust upon her which she would have avoided if she could, but she felt it her duty to accept. Louise was a stranger in a strange land, the laws of which she could not be expected to understand, and who was there to advise her if not her mistress? Violet had not much doubt as to what her advice would be, for she knew that it was a serious matter to withhold information that would tend to the conviction of a criminal. The maid would have to be told to take the course she ought to have taken at first—to give the police the name of the man Levison was to meet.

But Violet intuitively shrank from uttering the word which might be the first step towards condemning a fellow-creature to ignominious death, however well merited, and perhaps it was to gain time that she asked—

"How was it that you concealed this knowledge, Louise? Is the person whom you have been shielding a friend of yours?"

"On the contrary, mees, I 'ave neverre speak to 'im," came the glib reply. "I keep the secret because Mr. Travers Nugent, who I know to be honourable gentleman and well acquainted with m'sieu your father, because 'e guess I going to the police and persuade me to stop. 'E say it silly to stir up the mud for no good."

Now Violet Maynard had never yielded to the spell of Travers Nugent's social attractions. She had always been civil to him as one in whose well-informed society easy-going Montague Maynard found pleasure, but in her infrequent and superficial intercourse with the man-about-town she had been conscious of a vague mistrust. Quite naturally, therefore, she exclaimed—

"Mr. Nugent should not have interfered. It was very wrong of him, and though I do not know much about such matters I imagine that he may have made trouble for himself as well as for you. Who was this person whom Mr. Nugent was at such pains to protect, Louise? He is fond of currying favour with the natives of this place, I know, but I should hardly have thought that his thirst for popularity would have led him to incur the risk of personal unpleasantness."

Mademoiselle Louise stole one glance at the mildly indignant face in the glass, then dropped her eyes demurely before firing the shot with which she had been primed.

"It was not about what you call native of Ottermouth that he beg me to be silent, mees," she replied, using the hair-brush assiduously. "It was a visitor gentleman—very nice gentleman he seems and friendly with you, mees, and with m'sieu your father. But that I cannot 'elp. It was Mr. Chermside who arrange to meet Levison on the marsh at ten o'clock on the night when some one kill him."

Mademoiselle gave quite half a dozen strokes with the brush before she dared to look in the mirror again, and then she was impelled to do so by the quivering of the shapely shoulders. Was her mistress sobbing in silent anguish under the blow she had struck, or did the convulsion betoken restrained merriment? The glance into the glass settled it. The eyes of mistress and maid met, and Violet broke into a ripple of silvery laughter.