CHAPTER II
A Gathering of Threads
"FROM me?" repeated Miss Croydon blankly. “A single word from me? I do not understand you, Mr. Godfrey.”
“Do you mean to say,” demanded Godfrey with emphasis, “that you do not know where Mr. Drysdale was Monday night; that you were not yourself the cause of his leaving the house?”
She was staring at him with distended eyes.
“I the cause!” she repeated hoarsely, after a moment. “Mr. Godfrey, I will tell you something, of which I had determined never to speak. When he left the house that evening, he deliberately broke an appointment he had made with me—an appointment which he had prayed for. He had happened to hear Mr. Tremaine make certain proposals to me—in short,”—she hesitated, and then proceeded steadily, with raised head—“I may as well tell the whole truth. Since the evening of that first tragedy, Mr. Tremaine has been persecuting me with his attentions. At the time, I thought them merely insulting—I see now that he may have been in earnest.”
“I don’t in the least doubt that he was in earnest,” agreed Godfrey. “Mr. Drysdale, then, overheard him ask you to be his wife?”
“Yes—just that.”
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