"I tell you I have been fighting; and it's
illegal. You don't want to see me in prison, do you? Confound him,"
he added, reverting to her question with sudden wrath; "a
steam-hammer wouldn't kill him. You might as well hit a sack of
nails. And all my money, my time, my training, and my day's trouble
gone for nothing! It's enough to make a man cry."
"Go," said Lydia, with uncontrollable disgust. "And do not let me
see which way you go. How dare you come to me?"
The sponge-marks on Cashel's face grew whiter, and he began, to pant
heavily again. "Very well," he said. "I'll go. There isn't a boy in
your stables that would give me up like that."
As he spoke, he opened the door; but he involuntarily shut it again
immediately. Lydia looked through the window, and saw a crowd of
men, police and others, hurrying along the elm vista. Cashel cast a
glance round, half piteous, half desperate, like a hunted animal.
Lydia could not resist it. "Quick!" she cried, opening one of the
inner doors. "Go in there, and keep quiet--if you can." And, as he
sulkily hesitated a moment, she stamped vehemently. He slunk in
submissively. She shut the door and resumed her place at the
writing-table, her heart beating with a kind of excitement she had
not felt since, in her early childhood, she had kept guilty secrets
from her nurse.
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