"You regret!" she cried fiercely. "Do you regret the end of that woman—you know whom I mean?"
Beneath her straight glance he quivered. She had referred to a subject which he fain would have buried for ever. This dainty neat-waisted girl knew a terrible secret. Was it not only too true, as Lady Heyburn had vaguely suggested a dozen times, that her mouth ought to be effectually sealed?
He had sealed it once, as he thought. Her fear to explain to her father the incident of the opening of the safe had given him confidence that no word of the truth regarding the past would ever pass her lips. Yet he saw that his own machinations were now likely to prove his undoing. The web which, with her ladyship's assistance, he had woven about her was now stretched to breaking-point. If it did yield, then the result must be ruin—and worse. Therefore, he was straining every effort to again reinstate her in her father's good graces and restore in her mind something akin to confidence. But all his arguments, as he walked on at her side in the gathering gloom, proved useless. She was in no mood to listen to the man who had been her evil genius ever since her school-days. As he was speaking she was wondering if she dared go to Walter Murie and tell him everything. What would her lover think of her? What indeed? He would only cast her aside as worthless. No. Far better that he should remain in ignorance and retain only sad memories of their brief happiness.
"I am going to Glencardine to-night," Flockart went on. "I shall join the mail at Peterborough. What shall I tell your father?"
"Tell him the truth," was her reply. "That, I know, you will not do. So why need we waste further words?"
"Do you actually refuse, then, to leave this dismal hole?" he demanded impatiently.
"Yes, until I speak, and tell my father the plain and ghastly story."
"Rubbish!" he ejaculated. "You'll never do that—unless you wish to stand beside me in a criminal dock."
"Well, rather that than be your cat's-paw longer, Mr. Flockart!" she cried, her face flushing with indignation.
"Oh, oh!" he laughed, still quite imperturbed. "Come, come! This is scarcely a wise reply, my dear little girl!"