Buckheath," insisted Lydia
anxiously. "Tell him, just as you have told me, how long you and John
have been engaged, and how devoted she was to you before she came down
to the mill. You appeal to him that way. You can overtake him--I mean
you can intercept him--if you start right on now--cut across the turn,
and go through the tunnel."
"If I go after him to talk to him, and we--uh--we have an
interruption--are you going to tell everybody you see about it?"
demanded Shade sharply, staring down at the woman.
She crouched a little, still clinging to the pickets of the gate. The
word "interruption" only conveyed to her mind the suggestion that they
might be interfered with in their conversation. She did not recollect
the mountain use of it to describe a quarrel, an outbreak, or an affray.
"No," she whispered. "Oh, certainly not--I'll never tell anything that
you don't want me to."
"All right," returned Buckheath hardily. "If you won't, I won't. If you
name to people that I was the last one saw with Mr. Stoddard, I shall
have obliged to tell 'em of what you and me was talkin' about when he
passed us. You see that, don't you?"
She nodded silently, her frightened eyes on his face; and without
another word he set off at that long, swinging pace which belongs to his
people. Lydia turned and ran swiftly into the house, and up the stairs
to her own room.
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