"She is more than pretty, she is beautiful," Dunn answered with an emphasis that made Deede Dawson look at him sharply.

"Think so?" he said, and gave his peculiar laugh that had so little mirth in it. "Well, you're right, she is. He'll be a lucky man that gets her--and she's to be had, you know. But I'll tell you one thing, it won't be John Clive."

"I thought it rather looked," observed Dunn, "as if Miss Cayley might mean--"

Deede Dawson interrupted with a quick jerk of his head.

"Never mind what she means, it'll be what I mean," he declared. "I am boss; and what's more, she knows it. I believe in a man being master in his own family. Don't you?"

"If he can be," retorted Dunn. "But still, a girl naturally--"

"Naturally nothing," Deede Dawson interrupted again. "I tell you what I want for her, a man I can trust--trust--that's the great thing. Some one I can trust."

He nodded at Dunn as he said this and then walked off, and Dunn felt very puzzled as he, too, turned away.

"Was he offering her to me?" he asked himself. "It almost sounded like it. If so, it must mean there's something he wants from me pretty bad.

She's beautiful enough to turn any man's head--but did she know about poor Charlie's murder?--help in it, perhaps?--as she said she did with the packing-case."

He paused, and all his body was shaken by strong and fierce emotion.

"G.o.d help me," he groaned. "I believe I would marry her tomorrow if I could, innocent or guilty."

CHAPTER XIII. INVISIBLE WRITING

It was the next day that there arrived by the morning post a letter for Dunn.

Deede Dawson raised his eyebrows slightly when he saw it; and he did not hand it on until he had made himself master of its contents, though that did not prove to be very enlightening or interesting. The note, in fact, merely expressed gratification at the news that Dunn had secured steady work, a somewhat weak hope that he would keep it, and a still fainter hope that now perhaps he would be able to return the ten shillings borrowed, apparently from the writer, at some time in the past.

Mr. Deede Dawson, in spite of the jejune nature of the communication, read it very carefully and indeed even went so far as to examine the letter through a powerful magnifying-gla.s.s.

But he made no discovery by the aid of that instrument, and he neglected, for no man thinks of everything, to expose the letter to a gentle heat, which was what Dunn did when, presently, he received it, apparently unopened and with not the least sign to show that it had been tampered with in any way whatever.

Gradually, however, as Dunn held it to the fire, there appeared between the lines fresh writing, which he read very eagerly, and which ran:

"Jane Dunsmore, born 1830, married, against family wishes, John Clive and had one son, John, killed early this year in a motor-car accident, leaving one son, John, now of Ramsdon Place and third in line of succession to the Wreste Abbey property."

When he had read the message thus strangely and with such precaution conveyed to him, Dunn burnt the letter and went that day about his work in a very grave and thoughtful mood.

"I knew it couldn't be a mere coincidence," he mused. "It wasn't possible. I must manage to warn him, somehow; but, ten to one, he won't believe a word, and I don't know that I blame him--I shouldn't in his place. And he might go straight to Deede Dawson and ruin everything. I don't know that it wouldn't be wiser and safer to say nothing for the present, till I'm more sure of my ground--and then it may be too late."

"Just possibly," he thought, "the job Deede Dawson clearly thinks he can make me useful in may have something to do with Clive. If so, I may be able to see my way more clearly."

As it happened, Clive was away for a few days on some business he had to attend to, so that for the present Dunn thought he could afford to wait.

But during the week-end Clive returned, and on the Monday he came again to Bittermeads.

It was never very agreeable to Dunn to have to stand aloof while Clive was laughing and chatting and drinking his tea with Ella and her mother, and of those feelings of annoyance and vexation he made this time a somewhat ostentatious show.

That his manner of sulky anger and resentment did not go unnoticed by Deede Dawson he was very sure, but nothing was said at the time.

Next morning Deede Dawson called him while he was busy in the garage and insisted on his trying to solve another chess problem.

"I haven't managed the other yet," Dunn protested. "It's not too easy to hit on these key-moves."

"Never mind try this one," Deede Dawson said; and Ella, going out for a morning stroll with her mother, saw them thus, poring together over the travelling chess-board.

"They seem busy, don't they?" she remarked. "Father is making quite a friend of that man."

"I don't like him," declared Mrs. Dawson, quite vigorously for her. "I'm sure a man with such a lot of hair on his face can't be really nice, and I thought he was inclined to be rude yesterday."

"Yes," agreed Ella. "Yes, he was. I think Mr. Clive was a little vexed, though he took no notice, I suppose he couldn't very well."

"I don't like the man at all," Mrs. Dawson repeated. "All that hair, too. Do you like him?"

"I don't know," Ella answered, and after she and her mother had returned from their walk she took occasion to find Dunn in the garden and ask him some trifling question or another.

"You are interested in chess?" she remarked, when he had answered her.

"All problems are interesting till one finds the answer to them," he replied.

"There's one I know of," she retorted. "I wish you would solve for me."

"Tell me what it is," he said quickly. "Will you?"

She shook her head slightly, but she was watching him very intently from her clear, candid eyes, and now, as always, her nearness to him, the infinite appeal he found in her every look and movement, the very fragrance of her hair, bore him away beyond all purpose and intention.

"Tell me what it is," he said again. "Won't you? Miss Cayley, if you and I were to trust each other--it's not difficult to see there's something troubling you."

"Most people have some trouble or another," she answered evasively.

He came a little nearer to her, and instead of the gruff, harsh tones he habitually used, his voice was singularly pleasant and low as he said:

"People who are in trouble need help, Miss Cayley. Will you let me help you?"

"You can't," she answered, shaking her head. "No one could."

"How can you tell that?" he asked eagerly. "Perhaps I know more already than you think."

"I daresay you do," she said slowly. "I have thought that a long time.

Will you tell me one thing?--Are you his friend or not?"

There was no need for Dunn to ask to whom the p.r.o.noun she used referred.

"I am so much not his friend," he answered as quietly and deliberately as she had spoken. "That it's either his life or mine."