“He went on for a time more like a madman than anything else; but at last calmed down a little, and said if I would promise him not to deliver Mrs. Brady’s message he would overlook her ‘Judasism’—so he styled her attempt to save her friends from ruin.
“This I flatly refused. I told him she had asked me to help her; and, heaven helping me, I would—”
The speaker stopped suddenly—he had been overwrought; he had been like a horse going across country till now; and now there came a double ditch, he remembered he ought not to have forgotten.
“Miss Moffat,” he slowly recommenced, “after that came something I hesitate to tell you.”
“Tell me,” she said. “It does not matter that I am young instead of old. If it can help Nettie, it cannot hurt me.”
“He bade me take her if she would. He said I had his full leave, and free to rid him of a wife who had been his curse from the day he brought her home—whom he hated—whom he might some day, and that soon, be tempted to kill.”
“Yes!” gasped Grace.
“And I said I would rid her of him that hour and that minute; for that I loved, and honoured, and respected her too much to make her name a bye-word and a reproach, and that I would take her straight away from Maryville to her own kith and kin at Woodbrook, where there were two men who would know how to protect a woman’s fair fame from a ruffian like himself.”
“Yes!” said Grace again breathlessly. The end was at hand.
“I turned to go back to Maryville. I swear to you, Miss Moffat, I should never have quitted the house, leaving her at his mercy, for I knew what she had to expect; but he barred my passage.”