because
the great folk were wanting her. And it seemed as if she had been
expecting the summons too, for she was sitting ready close by little
Louis. She cast a white shawl about her shoulders, crossed the kitchen
and so into the room where the four gentlemen were sitting about the
table--the Fiscal with his papers at the end, and behind the curtains
drawn close about the press-bed where lay that which it was not good for
young eyes to see.

"Miss Maitland, will you describe to us your cousin, Lalor Maitland, of
whom you have already spoken to me?"

It was the Doctor who took her hand, while on the other side Boyd
Connoway in his flapping clothes of antique pattern with brass buttons
stood waiting his turn. Irma took one look about which I intercepted.
And I think my nod together with the presence of my grandmother gave her
courage, for she answered--

"Lalor Maitland? What has he to do with us? He shall not have us. We
would kill ourselves if we could not run away. You would never think of
giving us up to him----?"

"Never while I am alive!" cried my grandmother, but Dr. Gillespie signed
to her to be silent.

"Will you describe him to us?" suggested the Doctor suavely, "what sort
of a man, dark or fair, stout or spare, how he carries himself, what he
came over to this country for, and where he is likely to have gone, if
we find that he has left it?"

Irma thought a moment and then said, "Perhaps I shall not be quite just
because I hated him so. But he was a man whom most call handsome, though
to me there was always something dreadful about his face. His hair was
dark brown mixed with grey. His features were cut like those of a
statue, and his head small for his height. He was slender, light on his
feet, and walked silently--_ugh_--yes, like a cat."

The Fiscal looked an interrogation at Boyd Connoway.

"That is the man," he answered unhesitatingly, "though most of the time
while he stayed with Bridget and me he kept his bed. Only from the way
he got along the cliff by Portowarren, I judge he was only keeping out
of sight and by no means so weak with his wound as he would have had us
believe."

"And tell us what you saw of him yesterday, Wednesday?"

It was the Fiscal who asked the question, but I think all of us held our
breaths to catch Boyd Connoway's answer. He shook his head with a
disconcerted air like a boy who is set too hard a problem.

"I was from home most of the day, and when I came in, with a