The blustering
Q.C. was like another man now. For the first time in his life he
knew what it meant to be nervous and timid. Every sound made him
suppress an involuntary start; for as yet he had heard no whisper
of the body being discovered. He couldn't leave the neighbourhood,
however, till the murder was out. Dangerous as he felt it to
remain on the spot, some strange spell seemed to bind him against
his will to Dartmoor. He must stop and hear what local gossip had
to say when the body came to light. And above all, for the present,
he hadn't the courage to go home; he dared not face his own wife
and daughter.
So he stayed on and lounged, and pretended to interest himself with
walks over the hills and up the Tamar valley.
As he sat there in the billiard-room, that day, a young fellow
entered whom he remembered to have seen once or twice in London,
at evening parties, with Montague Nevitt. He turned pale at the
sight--Gilbert Gildersleeve turned pale, that great red man. At
first he didn't even remember the young fellow's name; but it came
back to him in time that he was one Guy Waring. It was a hard ordeal
to meet him, but Gilbert Gildersleeve felt he must brazen it out.
To slink away from the young man would be to rouse suspicion.
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