"I thought you were in a safe place," said Tom, swinging round to me.
"She is in no danger from me," said the man.
"Are you so foolish as to think so?" asked Tom.
"If you keep your mouth shut she is in no danger," was the answer.
"That may be," said Tom. Yet he turned to me and said, "You must come
away from here."
"I have nowhere to go to--and I will not leave Mrs. Gaunt."
"I am myself going away," the man said.
"How soon?"
"To-night maybe; to-morrow night at farthest."
"'Tis a great danger," said Tom, "and I thought you so safe." Again he
spoke to me.
"Is there danger from _you_?" the man asked.
"Do you take me for a scoundrel?" was the wrathful reply.
"A man will do much to keep his skin whole."
"There are some things no man will do that is a man and no worse."
"Truly you might have easily been in my place; and you would not inform
against a comrade?"
"I should be a black traitor to do it."
Yet there was a blacker treachery possible, such as we none of us
conceived the very nature of, not even the man that had the heart to
harbour it afterwards.
Tom would not leave me until Mrs. Gaunt came in, and then they had a
private talk together. She begged him to come to the house no more at
present, because of the suspicions that even so innocent a visitor might
bring upon it at that time of public disquiet.
"I shall contrive to get word to her father that he would do well to
come and fetch her," he said, in my hearing, and she answered that he
could not contrive a better thing.
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