The events of the afternoon filled her
mind, and she was not sorry to be alone. It occurred to her that she was
building up a formidable tower of strange secrets, and she wondered
whether, having begun by keeping her own counsel as to the attempts she
had witnessed against John Armitage's life, she ought now to unfold all
she knew to her father or to Dick. In the twentieth century homicide was
not a common practice among men she knew or was likely to know; and the
feeling of culpability for her silence crossed lances with a deepening
sympathy for Armitage. She had learned where he was hiding, and she
smiled at the recollection of the trifling bit of strategy she had
practised upon Chauvenet.
The maid who served Shirley noted with surprise the long pauses in which
her young mistress sat staring across the table lost in reverie. A pretty
picture was Shirley in these intervals: one hand raised to her cheek,
bright from the sting of the spring wind in the hills. Her forearm, white
and firm and strong, was circled by a band of Roman gold, the only
ornament she wore, and when she lifted her hand with its quick deft
gesture, the trinket flashed away from her wrist and clasped the warm
flesh as though in joy of the closer intimacy.
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