“‘Miss Bassett, I don’t think you know that you’re running into danger.’ For I felt that there was danger for her then if she went against me. She knew it, too, perhaps better than I did. I saw her poor old hands, all blue veins, beginning to tremble.
“‘You can’t have it, Lord Inley,’ she repeated.
“There wasn’t the ghost of a quiver in her voice.
“‘I must, I will!’ I said, and I made a movement towards her—a violent movement I know it was.
“But the old thing stood her ground. Oh, she was a gallant old woman.
“‘Do what you like to me,’ she said. ‘I’m old. What does it matter? She’s young.’
“Then I knew she understood.
“‘You’ve seen them together!’ I said. ‘Since I went!’
“She wouldn’t say. Not a word. I was mad. I forgot decency, everything. I took her. I searched her for the revolver. I searched her roughly—God forgive me. She trembled horribly, but never said a word. It wasn’t on her. She must have hidden it somewhere in that moment when she was alone in the cottage. That was another ruse to keep me searching in there while— But I saw it almost directly. I broke away, and rushed out and down the road. Something seemed to tell me they had passed. I got into the lane that leads to Charfield. The fly was gone. Then, all of a sudden, I felt perfectly calm. I turned, and went up to the Abbey gates. I knocked them up at the lodge. The keeper came out. When he saw me he said:
“‘You, my lord! However did you know?’