Roland Yorke / A Sequel to "The Channings"

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"What if I were to? To speak it aloud to all who ought to hear it?"

"Why then you would bring a hornet's nest about heads that you little wot of. Their sting might end in worse than death."

"Death for you?"

"No: I should be the hangman."

"What do you mean?"

"Listen, Miss Rye. I cannot tell you what I mean: and your better plan will be never to ask me. If----"

"Better for whom?" she interrupted.

"For--well, for me, for one. The fact is, that certain interests pertaining to myself and others--certain reminiscences of the past," he continued with very strong emphasis, "have become so complicated, so interwoven as it were one with the other, that we must in all probability stand or fall together."

"I do not understand you."

"I can scarcely expect that you should. But--were any proceeding on your part, any word, whether spoken by design or accident, to lead to that fall, you would rue it to the last hour of your life. That you can at least understand."