“Well, maybe so.”
Just as the messenger turned away Ruth caught sight of someone standing in the shrubbery, and as the man went out of the gate the person came forward. It was Virgy Still. She appeared to be in a state of great agitation, and began to tell Ruth a story in which her father and Rupert Gray and Major Leech were all mixed up so incoherently that, but that Ruth had just heard the facts, she could never have been able to unravel it. At length Ruth was able to calm her and to get her account. She had sent a man over to tell Ruth, but she was so afraid he had not come that she had followed him. “They want to get rid of Mr. Rupert. It has something to do with the case against pa and your father. They are afraid Mr. Rupert will give evidence against them, and they mean to put him in jail and keep him from doing it. Do you know what it is?”
Ruth shook her head.
“I do not either. I heard them talking about it, but I did not understand what it was. They ain’t after Mr. Rupert; they’re after Mr. Jacquelin and Captain Allen.”
She suddenly burst into tears.
“Oh, Miss Ruth,” she sobbed, “you don’t know—you don’t know——”
“I don’t know what?” asked Ruth, gently.
“He is the only one that was always kind to me.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Jacquelin. He was always good to me; when I was a little bit of girl he was always kind to me. And now he hates me, and I never wanted the place!”