You may choose which way the story
shall end."
"You so nearly make me laugh at you, Mr. Crosby, that I find the utmost
difficulty in quarrelling with you. The orders I shall not part with,
and I am half minded to call for help."
"You would not need it when it arrived," Crosby answered.
"And you would hang to-morrow."
"You have worked so secretly that I hardly think suspicion would fall
upon me. I could go as quietly as I came, and no one be any the wiser."
"You shall be humoured, Mr. Crosby. I never thought to cross blades with
a man ripe for Tyburn Tree, but the blade can be snapped afterwards."
"It is the way I should prefer the story to end," Crosby returned.
Rosmore pushed back the table, then the swords rang from their
scabbards.
The girl behind the curtain did not move. She had watched Rosmore's face
to try and learn whether Crosby's story were true. She travelled from
doubt to belief, then back to doubt again, and now as the swords crossed
she was fascinated, held there, it seemed, by some power outside
herself, unable to move, powerless to cry out. She knew not what to
believe. Lord Rosmore had not admitted the truth of the story, still he
had not denied it.
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