But it cannot be helped. I must go
blundering on. I'm groping in the dark, you know, but it's a thousand
pities I shall have to tread on _your_ toes."
"It isn't that," sobbed Doris. "I hate to put my thoughts into words.
That's all. There _is_ a man whom I'm--afraid of."
"Siddle?"
She turned on Winter a face of sudden awe.
"How can you possibly guess?" she said wonderingly, and sheer
bewilderment dried her tears.
"My business is nine-tenths guesswork. At any rate, we are on firm ground
now. If you could please yourself, I suppose, Mr. Siddle would not come
to tea to-day!"
"He certainly would not," declared the girl emphatically.
"You believe he is coming for a purpose?"
"Yes."
"Elkin--I must drag him in again for an instant--pretends that the
commotion aroused in the village by this murder would incline you
favorably to a proposal of marriage. Mr. Siddle may have discovered some
virtue in the theory."
"Did Mr. Elkin really hint that I needed _him_ as a shield?"
Doris was genuinely angry now. She little imagined that Winter was
playing on her emotions with a master hand.
"Don't waste any wrath on Elkin," he soothed her.
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