"My dear girl," said Ross Duggan's voice a trifle testily, "what a fool you are to come out here at this time—if you'll excuse my saying so! Sit down, for heaven's sake, if you must be here, and don't let those men down there see you. I'm—I'm making some observations on my own, but at any minute someone may come up here—and I wouldn't answer for the consequences. You've fallen into a hornet's nest, Catherine, and only a woman with some desperate plan of action would do that. Don't you know what's being carried on down there?"
She shook her dark head, and dropped instantly into a little heap of satin and dark-coloured velvet beside him in the darkness.
"No," she whispered softly. "I wondered what you were doing, and who your companion might be. Send him away, Ross. I must speak with you alone!"
"All right." The inflection of voice was so identical with that of the new lord of the manor as to make Dollops fairly jump at sound of it. He would hardly have been able to believe the evidence of his own ears if he had not seen this thing done before in those old Apache days, in the Inn of The Twisted Arm, when the notorious Margot and her crew had run them to earth and this was the only way out: "Get along there, Parsons. There's nothing more to be seen now. You can meet me some time next week—if things go all right with me and I'm not already swinging at the end of a long rope! And we'll have another confab together. But you'd better make yourself scarce now. There'll be a dickens of a kybosh if they find we've broken parole, and I don't want you hauled into the beastly thing. So long. And listen—listen: be careful—do!"
Dollops nodded his head forthwith, and by dint of wriggling and scrambling made his exit from this astonishing pair, and, free of the bare moorside at last, broke cover and started off at a good run, wondering what the dickens they had stumbled into now.
Meanwhile the erstwhile Ross and his lady friend sat on behind the furze-bush in their somewhat ridiculous predicament, and talked in whispers.
"What is it you want to say to me?" said "Ross," a hint of sharpness in his low-pitched voice. "That you should run this risk—it is madness, Catherine—madness!"
"Nothing is madness that I could do for your sake," she responded passionately, putting a hand over his as it rested upon the brown earth, and bending toward him. "Don't you know, Ross, haven't you guessed my secret yet? Surely you must have seen it? I have tried to tell you with my eyes, time and time again, and when I have caught that odd look in yours when you looked at Cynthia. I felt my heart bound with gladness that you did not care for her. And that has made me brave. Oh, my dear—my dear! Listen to me, and do what I ask of you. If you did kill your father, Ross, that man down there at the Castle will make you swing for it. I know it—I feel it here—here! Those penetrating eyes of his can see beyond the veil of deception right down into your heart. If you have done this dreadful thing, tell me, and I have made all arrangements that you can escape at once. I've a car waiting in the lane. I 'phoned for it at the garage by the station only a bare two hours ago—and I had a difficulty, too, as you can imagine, with the whole house full of policemen and our every action watched. But I was desperate—desperate! I couldn't see you arrested for that! And so, while there is yet time.... Oh, don't you see? It's your liberty I'm offering you! And we could start away together and make our lives afresh in a new country. Ross, Ross, don't you hear, don't you see? Every minute is precious while that man is in command at the Castle. He looks a fool—but he is a clever fool at that. I don't trust him. I'm not a weak woman, Ross, to be afraid of a murderer—pshaw! what is that? If a man has need to do it, and the courage, I can even admire! And I love you! Don't speak now, Ross—just come, and let us slip away together. In this wild country we can soon be lost—slip down the coast and get away on the first steamer to—anywhere! I've money on me—see here. Plenty of it! I sent Hilda down to draw it all out of the bank this morning. (Thank God for the comfort of your telephone!) She'd do anything for me—that girl—since I caught her stealing Cynthia's pearl necklace, and threatened her if she didn't return it to tell the whole sordid story to the family. And she swore to help me any time I needed her. So come, Ross—come now—come quickly! but come—come!"
Her whispered words trailed off into silence at last, and Cleek, catching his breath for a moment at the whole audacious plot which she had laid so successfully, could not help but admire, even as he felt the rush of contempt that a man must feel for every woman who can cheapen herself thus in his eyes. But here was a pretty kettle of fish indeed! What to say to her? what to do? It took time to think, so he merely caught her hand and squeezed it, and felt all sorts of a beast for making such use of her confession as to lead her on to even deeper things.
She reached a hand out at the pressure of his fingers, and wound it about his neck.