“Woman,” he said, “do you wish for death, that you tempt me thus to kill you?”
There was a trembling fear in Britton’s voice that re-assured Sir Frederick; and, congratulating himself that the sudden movement he had, on the impulse of the moment, made, had escaped observation, he again lay perfectly quiet, but prepared to aid poor Maud upon an emergency.
“Maud,” said Britton, after a pause, “give me the paper you have! And leave London.”
“Leave you,” said Maud, “I dare not; I have a duty to do,—it is to follow you. Wherever you go, Andrew Britton, there will you find me. No, no! I cannot leave you; I sometimes think I am dead, and that there is my spirit haunting you.”
“We shall see,” muttered Britton; “spirits have never troubled me yet. The paper, I say!—The paper that you set such store by! I must and will have it.”
“Never!”
“Then take the consequences.”
He again raised his knife, and was in the very act of bringing it down to plunge it into the breast of the hapless creature, when his eyes fell upon the form of Sir Frederick Hartleton, who rose up on the parapet between him and the water.
This sudden appearance, rising apparently from out of the river, had all the effect which Sir Frederick expected it would. Britton, for the first time in his life, was affected by superstition. He could, on the spur of the moment, imagine the tall dusky form that thus rose before his very eyes, and, as it were, from the bosom of the Thames, to be no other than some supernatural being interposing between him and his victim.
He started back in horror, then, dropping the knife, he rushed precipitately from the spot.