But Enid, though
she opened her lips, found that she could not speak. Hardly knowing what
she was doing, she sat down again. And, after what seemed to the owner of
the attractive, candle-lit room an awful silence, Mrs. Piper went on,
speaking now in quite a different tone--easy, confidential, and with a
touch of wheedling good nature in it.
"Thanks to your late gentleman, Piper knows all about dogs, and all
'e requires, Modam, to set 'im up as a dogfancier, so to speak, is a
moderate bit o' money. As 'e says 'imself, five hundred pound would do it
easy. If I may make so bold, that's what reely brought me 'ere, Mrs.
Crofton. It do seem to us both, that, under the circumstances, you might
feel disposed to find the money?"
Enid looked down as she answered, falteringly: "I told Piper some time
ago that it was quite impossible for me to do anything of the kind."
In her fear and distress she uttered the words more loudly than she was
aware, and the woman looked round at the closed door with an apprehensive
look: "Don't speak so loud. We don't want to tell everyone our business,"
she said sharply.
Now she came quite close up to her victim, for by now Enid Crofton knew
that she was in very truth this woman's victim.
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