And, oh, when he said it, you
should have seen his face. It was horrible, horrible. I've seen
nothing else since. It dogs me--it haunts me."
Mrs. Gildersleeve sat down by the bedside wringing her hands in
silence. "It's too late to-night," she said at last, after a long
deep pause, and in a voice like a woman condemned to death, "too
late to do anything; but to-morrow your father must go up to town
and try to see him. At all costs we must buy him off. He knows
everything--that's clear. He'll ruin us. He'll ruin us!"
"It's no use papa going up to town, though," Gwendoline answered
half dreamily. "That dreadful man said he was going away for his
holiday to the country at once. He'll be gone to-morrow."
"Gone? Gone where?" Mrs. Gildersleeve cried, in the same awestruck
voice.
"To Devonshire," Gwendoline replied, shutting her eyes hard and
still seeing him.
Mrs. Gildersleeve echoed the phrase in a startled cry. "To
Devonshire, Gwendoline! To Devonshire! Did he say to Devonshire?"
"Yes," Gwendoline went on slowly, trying to recall his very words.
"To the skirts of Dartmoor, I think he said; to a place in the
wilds by the name of Mambury."
"Mambury!"
The terror and horror that frail and faded woman threw into the one
word fairly startled Gwendoline.
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