Page:Bentley- Trent's Last Case (Nelson, nd).djvu/322

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314
TRENT'S LAST CASE.

just heard? No answer to any question. A voluntary statement, precise in terms, that was utterly false. The unimaginable had happened. It was almost as if some one I knew well, in a moment of closest sympathy, had suddenly struck me in the face. The blood rushed to my head, and I stood still on the grass. I stood there until I heard his step at the front door, and then I pulled myself together and stepped quickly to the car. He handed me a banker's paper bag with gold and notes in it. "There's more than you'll want there," he said, and I pocketed it mechanically.

'For a minute or so I stood discussing with Manderson–it was by one of those tours de force of which one's mind is capable under great excitement–points about the route of the long drive before me. I had made the run several times by day, and I believe I spoke quite calmly and naturally about it. But while I spoke my mind was seething in a flood of suddenly born suspicion and fear. I did not know what I feared. I simply felt fear, somehow–I did not know how–connected with Manderson. My soul once opened to it, fear rushed in like an assaulting army. I felt–I