Lottie was too indignant at his brutality to make any answer. She felt her limbs trembling beneath her, and sat down again quickly that it might not be noticed, for she really feared the man.
But the gentleman in the arm-chair made no offensive movement, as she had thought he might do; for in her eyes he was a wretch capable of any crime, and, knowing that she and Eva were utterly alone and friendless in this isolated spot, might he not have it in his heart to kill them and so get them out of his way?
She knew instinctively that he was a man who would hesitate at nothing that would serve to gain his ends. If he could not get possession of the property he coveted in any other way, what was there to hinder him if he chose to take their lives? There was not a friend, not even an acquaintance, within miles of them who would be interested to inquire into their fate. And then a dreadful fear flashed upon her. Perhaps he had murdered Jimmy—had lured him away from home with fair promises, and had then killed him.
Her face blanched at the thought as she turned and looked searchingly at the hateful countenance confronting her, and, almost without knowing that she spoke, Lottie uttered the words, very nearly like those with which she had first greeted him:
“What have you done with my brother Jimmy?”
Mart Highton sprang to his feet, pale with anger, and, with one great stride, came to where Lottie was sitting.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
[ [This Story began in No. 45.]