Then he lifted his head and began again staring at the space between Mrs. Crofton's chair and the wall.
Enid Crofton opened her mouth and then she shut it again. What did the boy know? What had he seen? What had he been told? She remembered that Mr. Tosswill was a magistrate. Had the Pipers been down to see him?
"There were some people," went on the boy, and again he spoke in that queer, muffled whisper, almost as if the words were being dragged out of him against his will, "who thought"—he stopped—"who thought," he repeated, "that Colonel Crofton did not take that poison knowingly."
She told herself desperately that she must say something—something ordinary, something of no account, before a power outside herself forced her to utter words which would lead to horror incalculable.
Speaking in such a loud discordant voice that Timmy quickly moved back a step or two, she exclaimed: "I was not going to tell anybody yet—but as you seem so anxious to know my plans, I will tell you a secret, Timmy. I am going to India after all! A splendid strong man, an officer and a gentleman who would have won the V.C. ten times over in any other war, and who would kill anyone who ever said a word against me, has asked me to be his wife, and to go out to India very, very soon."
"And have you said you will?" he asked.
"Of course I have."
"And will you be married soon?" went on her inquisitor.
"Yes, very soon," she cried hysterically. "As soon as possible!"
"Then you will have to leave Beechfield."