And this man whom the world so firmly believed to be a God-fearing philanthropist intended that pretty Gwen Griffin, sweet, innocent and inoffensive, little more than a child, should meet with the same awful fate. He held his breath. He could have struck the man before him—if he dared.
He must blindly do the bidding of this cruel, heartless man who held him so entirely in his power, this gigantic schemer whose “cat’s-paw” he had been for years.
And he must stand helplessly by, unable to raise a hand to save that poor defenceless victim of a powerful man’s passion and avarice.
Alas! that the great god gold must ever be all-powerful in man’s world, and women must ever pay the price.
Chapter Nineteen.
Is about the Doctor.
Doctor Diamond, in his long Wellington boots and overcoat, was descending the steep hill into Horsford village one gloomy afternoon with Aggie at his side.
It had been raining, and the pair had been across the meadows to Overton, a small hamlet where, from a farmhouse, they obtained their weekly supply of butter. This, the fair-haired child, her clean white pinafore appearing below her navy-blue coat, carried in a small basket upon her arm. She had been dancing along merrily at the little man’s side, delighted to be out with him for a walk, when, as they came over the brow of the hill, they saw a man in a long drab mackintosh ascending in their direction.