“May it! It is anything but a right way. He is for ever seeking to meet her on the sly. I know it. He got her out in the garden to-night to a meeting, you say: you and Johnny Ludlow saw it.”
“Dicky saw it too, and Charlotte got the truth out of him. There may be something in what you say, Dan.”
“There’s a great deal in what I say,” contended Dan, his honest face full of earnestness. “Look here. Here’s an officer and a gentleman; a rich man, as we are given to believe, and we’ve no reason to doubt it. He seems to spend enough—Carter saw him lose five pounds last night, betting at billiards. If he is in love with a young lady, there’s nothing to hinder a man like that from going in for her openly——”
“Except her age,” struck in Sam. “He may think they’ll refuse Mina to him on that score.”
“Stuff! I wish you wouldn’t interrupt me, Sam. Every day will help to remedy that—and he might undertake to wait a year or two. But I feel sure and certain he does not really care for Mina; I feel sure that, if he is seeking in this underhand way to get her to promise to marry him, he has some ulterior motive in view. My own belief is he would like to kidnap her.”
Sam laughed. “You mean, kidnap her money?”
“Well, I don’t see what else it can be. The fellow may have outrun the constable, and need some ready money to put him straight. Rely upon this much, Sam—that his habits are as fast as they can well be. I have been learning a little about him lately.”
Sam made no answer. He began to look grave.
“Not at all the sort of man who ought to marry Mina, or any other tender young girl. He’d break her heart in a twelvemonth.”
Sam spoke up. “I said to Johnny Ludlow, just now, that it might be better to tell Dr. Knox. Perhaps——”