uston picks up the local bag without stopping, while the up-mail drops
its letters and parcels into the big, strong net. For a few moments they
halted to watch the dining-car express for Euston pass with a roar and a
crash as she dashed down the incline towards Crieff Junction.

Then, as they turned again towards the house, he suddenly exclaimed,
"Look here, Winnie. We've got to face the music now. Every day increases
our peril. If you are actually afraid to act as I suggest, then tell me
frankly and I'll know what to do. I tell you quite openly that I have
neither desire nor intention to be put into a hole by this confounded
girl. She has defied me; therefore she must take the consequences."

"How do you know that your action the other night has not aroused her
suspicions?"

"Ah! there you are quite right. It may have done so. If it has, then our
peril has very considerably increased. That's just my argument."

"But we'll have Walter to reckon with in any case. He loves her."

"Bah! Leave the boy to me. I'll soon show him that the girl's not worth
a second thought," replied Flockart with nonchalant air. "All you have
to do is to act as I suggested the other night. Then leave the rest to
me."

"And suppose it were discovered?" asked the woman, whose face had grown
considerably paler.

"Well, suppose the worst happened, and it were discovered?" he asked,
raising his brows slightly. "Should we be any worse off than would be
the case if this girl took it into her head to expose us--if the facts
which she could prove placed us side by side in an assize-court?"

The woman--clever, scheming, ambitious--was silent. The question
admitted of no reply. She recognised her own peril. The picture of
herself arraigned before a judge, with that man beside her, rose before
her imagination, and she became terrified. That slim, pale-faced girl,
her husband's child, stood between her and her own honour, her own
safety. Once the girl was removed, she would have no further fear, no
apprehension, no hideous forebodings concerning the imminent future. She
saw it all as she walked along that moss-grown forest-road, her eyes
fixed straight before her. The tempter at her side had urged her to
commit a dastardly, an unpardonable crime. In that man's hands she was,
alas! as wax. He poured into her ear a vivid picture of what must
inevitably result should Gabrielle reveal the ugly truth, at the same
time calmly watching the effect of his wo