"
Mr. Wotherspoon's sharp blue eyes seemed to consider it. He drummed on
the table. "I am a much older man than you, Captain Rullock, and an
old adviser of your family. Perhaps I may speak without offense? That
subject of quarrel, now, between you and the laird of Glenfernie--"
The other made a movement, impatient and imperious. "It is not
likely, sir, that he divulged that!"
"He? No! But fate--fortune--the unrolling course of things--plain
Providence--whatever you choose to call it--seems at times quite below
or above that reticence which we others so naturally prize and
exhibit!"
"You'll oblige me, sir, by not speaking in riddles."
The irony dropped from Mr. Wotherspoon's tone. He faced the business
squarely. "Do you mean to say that you do not know of the suicide of
Elspeth Barrow?"
The chair opposite made a grating sound, pushed violently back upon
the bare, polished floor. Down the street, through the window, came
the sound of Cluny Macpherson's pipers, playing down from the
Lawnmarket. Rullock seemed to have thrust his chair back into the
shadow. Out of it came presently his voice, low and hoarse:
"No."
"They found her on Christmas Day--drowned in the Kelpie's Pool.
Self-murder--murder also of a child that would have been."
Again silence. The lawyer found that he must go through with it,
having come so far.
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