“So I did. And I could have sworn it was you.”
“It is that conspiracy which we have to fathom,” Charlie said. “At least, we have established the fact that Maud is alive. And having found Maud, we may also find Marion. Possibly she went to her into safe hiding from us.”
“More than possible, I think.”
But while they were whispering something occurred which made them both start. The girl, crimson with anger, suddenly dived her hand into her dress pocket, and, taking out a bundle of paper, flung it at the man before her.
They saw, to their amazement, that it was a bunch of crisp banknotes. She had cast it at his feet in open defiance.
Perhaps the money was the price of her silence—money he had sent to her or to her father to purchase secrecy!
The old man gave a glance at the notes crushed into a bundle and lying upon the carpet, and then, turning to her, snapped his bony finger and thumb in defiance, and laughed in her face—a grim, evil laugh, which Charlie knew from experience meant retaliation and bitter vengeance.