“‘There,’ he cried, ‘now you can put it on me!’”
“Lalor Maitland,” said the Fiscal, ruminating, with his brow knit at the letter in his hand. “Where is that maid? Bring her here!”
I sprang away at once to knock on Irma’s door, and bid her come, because the great folk were wanting her. And it seemed as if she had been expecting the summons too, for she was sitting ready close by little Louis. She cast a white shawl about her shoulders, crossed the kitchen and so into the room where the four gentlemen were sitting about the table—the Fiscal with his papers at the end, and behind the curtains drawn close about the press-bed where lay that which it was not good for young eyes to see.
“Miss Maitland, will you describe to us your cousin, Lalor Maitland, of whom you have already spoken to me?”
It was the Doctor who took her hand, while on the other side Boyd Connoway in his flapping clothes of antique pattern with brass buttons stood waiting his turn. Irma took one look about which I intercepted. And I think my nod together with the presence of my grandmother gave her courage, for she answered—
“Lalor Maitland? What has he to do with us? He shall not have us. We would kill ourselves if we could not run away. You would never think of giving us up to him——?”
“Never while I am alive!” cried my grandmother, but Dr. Gillespie signed to her to be silent.
“Will you describe him to us?” suggested the Doctor suavely, “what sort of a man, dark or fair, stout or spare, how he carries himself, what he came over to this country for, and where he is likely to have gone, if we find that he has left it?”
Irma thought a moment and then said, “Perhaps I shall not be quite just because I hated him so. But he was a man whom most call handsome, though to me there was always something dreadful about his face. His hair was dark brown mixed with grey. His features were cut like those of a statue, and his head small for his height. He was slender, light on his feet, and walked silently—ugh—yes, like a cat.”
The Fiscal looked an interrogation at Boyd Connoway.