“Dashed if I’ll go,” said Poss. “I don’t care about a chap that doesn’t act white. I saw Red Mick’s and Peggy’s horses at his office to-day, and now he comes up here as bold as brass.”
“Let him go round to the front,” said Hugh, “and then he can ask the servants for whoever he wants. If we go out and meet him, we’ll have to ask him to stay.”
The approach to houses in the bush is generally by way of the yard where the horses arrive, and it is very unusual for anyone, except a stranger making a formal visit, to be allowed to find their way round to the front.
Blake rode up and gave his horse to the horse-boy. “Put him in the stable for a while,” he said. “I may want him again.” Then he went round to the front door and asked for Mrs. Gordon.
“I have come to see Miss Grant on very important business,” he said when the old lady came in. “Would you ask her if she would see me?”
The old lady was in a quandary. She had heard all the rumours that were going about, but she knew that they had been kept from Mary Grant, and she thought that if Blake meant to talk business he might shock or startle the girl terribly.
“Mr. Pinnock the lawyer is here,” she said. “Perhaps you had better see him. Miss Grant does not know—”
“I am come as a friend of Miss Grant’s, Mrs. Gordon,” he said. “But, if Mr. Pinnock is here, perhaps it would be better for me to see him first. Shall I wait for him here?”
“If you will go into the office I will send him in there,” and the old lady withdrew to talk of commonplace matters with Mary, all the time feeling that a great crisis was at hand.
Soon the two lawyers faced one another over the office table, and Blake got to business at once.
“Mr. Pinnock,” he said, “I am asked to act for Margaret Donohoe, or Margaret Grant as she claims to be; and I want you to believe that I am seriously telling you what I believe to be the truth, when I say that Miss Grant had better settle this case.”
“Why should she pay one penny? What proofs have you? It looks to me, with all respect to you, Mr. Blake, like an ordinary case of blackmail.”
“If it were blackmail,” said Blake quietly, “do you think that I would be here, giving you particulars of the case? I tell you, man, I am ready now to give you all particulars, and you can soon see whether to advise a settlement or not.”