Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/255

 CHAPTER XVI

The Range 16 Scandal

"I guess I didn't make any mistake in staying," said Trafford, more to break the embarrassing silence which followed Cranston's withdrawal, than with any definite purpose.

Matthewson glanced up with the air of a man who had half lost consciousness of surrounding circumstances in a line of painful thought.

"I am under deep obligation to you," he said slowly; and then, apparently tracking back to his thoughts before Trafford spoke, he added, as it seemed, irrelevantly:

"You said he could tell nothing you did not already know."

The pain which manifested itself in his face would have shown a far less keen man what the speaker had in mind, yet was not willing more directly to name.