FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124  
125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   >>   >|  
ght have done. I can not positively say--" "Ah, that explains everything. No doubt mother heard you and was frightened. I see it all now. Natt, drive on--cold journey--good-night." Greta felt her face burn in the darkness. Before she had time or impulse to reply, they were rolling away toward home. At intervals her ear caught the sound of suppressed titters from the driver's seat. Natt was chuckling to himself with great apparent satisfaction. Since the fire at the mill he had been putting two and two together, and he was now perfectly confident as to the accuracy of his computation. When folks said that Paul had been at the fire he laughed derisively, because he knew that an hour before he had left him at the station. But an idea works in a brain like Natt's pretty much as the hop ferments. When it goes to the bottom it leaves froth and bubbles at the top. Natt knew that there was some grave quarrel between the brothers. He also knew that there were two ways to the station and two ways back to Newlands--one through the town, the other under Latrigg. Mr. Paul might have his own reasons for pretending to go to London, and also his own reasons for not going. Natt had left him stepping into the station at the town entrance. But what was to prevent him from going out again at the entrance from Latrigg? Of course that was what he had done. And he had never been out of the county. Deary me, how blind folks were, to be sure! Thus Natt's wise head chuckled and clucked. At one moment Natt twisted his sapient and facetious noddle over his shoulder to where Brother Peter sat huddled into a hump and in gloomy silence. "Mercy me, Peter!" he cried, in an affrighted whisper, and with a mighty tragical start, "and is that thee? Dusta know I thowt it were thy ghost?" "Don't know as it's not--dragging a body frae bed a cold neet like this," mumbled Peter, numbed up to his tongue, but still warm enough there. CHAPTER IX. Hugh Ritson was content that Greta should think she had been the victim of a delusion. He was not unwilling that she should be tortured by suggestions of the supernatural. If she concluded that Paul had deceived her as to his departure from Newlands, he would not be unlikely to foster the delusion. The one thing of all others which Hugh Ritson was anxious to prevent was that Greta should be led to draw the purely matter-of-fact inference that when she thought she saw Paul she had really seen anothe
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124  
125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
station
 

prevent

 

entrance

 
delusion
 

Ritson

 

Newlands

 

Latrigg

 

reasons

 

mighty

 

affrighted


whisper

 
tragical
 

dragging

 
positively
 
silence
 

clucked

 

moment

 

twisted

 

sapient

 

chuckled


facetious

 

noddle

 

huddled

 

gloomy

 

Brother

 
shoulder
 

mumbled

 

anxious

 

departure

 

foster


purely

 

anothe

 
thought
 

matter

 

inference

 

deceived

 

concluded

 

CHAPTER

 

numbed

 

tongue


content
 
suggestions
 

supernatural

 

tortured

 

unwilling

 
victim
 

impulse

 
derisively
 
laughed
 

rolling