And how anybody could happen aught along it of a summer's evening is beyond me!--unless indeed we're going back to the old kidnapping times.

And if you knew Maisie Dunlop, you'd know that she's the sort that would put up a fight if she was interfered with! I'm wondering if this has aught to do with all yon Carstairs affair?
There's been such blackness about that, and such villainy, that I wish I'd never heard the name!" "Aye!" he answered.

"I understand you.

But--it's coming to an end.

And in queer ways--queer ways, indeed!" I made no reply to him--and I was sick of the Carstairs matters; it seemed to me I had been eating and drinking and living and sleeping with murder and fraud till I was choked with the thought of them.