“Tell me how,” said Dunn.

“Oh, that’s going too fast and too far,” answered the other with his mirthless laugh.  “Now, there’s Mr. John Clive—­what about him?”

“I’ll answer for him,” replied Dunn slowly and thickly.  “I’ve put better men than John Clive out of my way before today.”

“That’s the way to talk,” cried Deede Dawson.  “Dunn, dare you play a big game for big stakes?”

“Try me,” said Dunn.

“If I showed you,” Deede Dawson’s voice sank to a whisper, “if I showed you a pretty girl for a wife—­a fortune to win—­what would you say?”

“Try me,” said Dunn again, and then, making his voice as low and hoarse as was Dunn’s, he asked: 

“Is it Clive?”

“Later—­perhaps,” answered Deede Dawson.  “There’s some one else —­first.  Are you ready?”

“Try me,” said Dunn for the third time, and as he spoke his quick ear caught the faint sound of a retreating footstep, and he told himself that Ella must have lingered near and had perhaps heard all they said.

“Try me,” he said once more, speaking more loudly and clearly this time.

CHAPTER XIV

LOVE-MAKING AT NIGHT

Dunn went to his room that night with the feeling that a crisis was approaching.  And he wished very greatly that he knew how much Ella had overheard of his talk with her stepfather, and what interpretation she had put upon it.

He determined that in the morning he would take the very first opportunity he could find of speaking to her.

But in the morning it appeared that Mrs. Dawson had had a bad night, and was very unwell, and Ella hardly stirred from her side all day.

Even when Clive called in the afternoon she would not come down, but sent instead a message begging to be excused because of her mother’s indisposition, and Dunn, from a secure spot in the garden, watched the young man retire, looking very disconsolate.

This day, too, Dunn saw nothing of Deede Dawson, for that gentleman immediately after breakfast disappeared without saying anything to anybody, and by night had still not returned.

Dunn therefore was left entirely to himself, and to him the day seemed one of the longest he had ever spent.

That Ella remained so persistently with her mother troubled him a good deal, for he did not think such close seclusion on her part could be really necessary.

He was inclined to fear that Ella had overheard enough of what had passed between him and Deede Dawson to rouse her mistrust, and that she was therefore deliberately keeping out of his way.

Then too, he was troubled in another fashion by Deede Dawson’s absence, for he was afraid it might mean that plans were being prepared, or possibly action being taken, that might mature disastrously before he himself was ready to act.