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220 "It's all right, Miss Farmond!" he said. "Don't you worry! I got that man down here to clear you—just for that purpose and no other!"

"But" she exclaimed, "Mr. Rattar said you suspected Malcolm and me and were determined to prove our guilt!"

"Simon Rattar said that!"

There was something so menacing in his voice that Cicely involuntarily shrank back.

"Do you mean to tell me, honour bright, that Simon Rattar told you that lie in so many words?"

"Yes," she said, "he did indeed. And he said that this Mr. Carrington was a very clever man and was almost certain to trump up a very strong case against us, and so he advised me to go away."

He seemed almost incapable of speech at this.

"He actually advised you to bolt?"

She nodded.

"To slip away quietly to London and stay in an hotel he recommended till I heard from him. He said you had sworn to track down the criminals and hang them with your own hands, and so when I saw you suddenly come up behind me in that dark road to-night—oh, you've no idea how terrified I was! Mr. Rattar had frightened away all the nerve I ever had, and then when I thought I was safely away, you suddenly came up behind me in that dark road!"

"You poor little" he began, laying his hand upon hers, and then he remembered Sir Malcolm and altered his sentence into: "You know now