What's Bred in the Bone by Grant Allen
page 317 of 368 (86%)
page 317 of 368 (86%)
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with "my dear child," when you mean to differ from her, with an
air of masculine superiority--"how on earth can that be, when, as I told you, I have Guy's confession in writing, under his own very hand, that he really did it?" "I don't care a pin for that," Elma cried, with a true woman's contempt for anything so unimportant as mere positive evidence. "Perhaps Sir Gilbert made him do it somehow--compelled him, or coerced him, or willed him, or something--I don't understand these new notions--or perhaps he got him into a scrape and then hadn't the courage or the manliness to get him out of it. But at any rate, I can answer for one thing, I were to go to the stake for it--Sir Gilbert Gildersleeve is the man who's really guilty." As she spoke, a great shadow darkened the door of the room for a moment ominously. Sir Gilbert looked in with a lady on his arm--the inevitable dowager who refreshes herself continuously at frequent intervals through six hours of entertainment. When he saw those two tete-a-tete, he drew back, somewhat disconcerted. "Don't let's go in there, Lady Knowles," he whispered to the dowager by his side. "A pair of young people discussing their hearts. We were once young ourselves. It's a pity to disturb them." And he passed on across the hall towards the great refreshment-room opposite. "Well, I don't know," Cyril said bitterly, as the judge disappeared through the opposite door. "I wish I could agree with you. But I can't, I can't. The burden of it's heavier than my shoulders can |
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