"He knows how to respect a woman--what you don't!" she retorted
hotly.
"So I don't respect you, my angel?" shouted her stepfather.
"Then you know what you can do! The door's open and there's
few'll miss you!"
Snatching her hat, the girl, very white, made to go out. Whereat
the gamekeeper, a brutal man with small love for Molly, and
maddened by her taking him at his word, seized her suddenly by
her abundant fair hair and hauled her back into the room.
A violent scene followed, at the end of which Molly fainted and
Bramber came out and locked the door.
When he came back about half-past nine the girl was missing. She
did not reappear that night, and the police were advised in the
morning. Their most significant discovery was this:
Captain Ronald Vane, on the night of Molly's disappearance, had
left the Manor House, after dining alone with his host, Sir
Howard Hepwell, saying that he proposed to take a stroll as far
as the Deep Wood.
He never returned!
From the moment that Gamekeeper Bramber left his cottage, and the
moment when Sir Howard Hepwell parted from his guest after
dinner, the world to which these two people, Molly Clayton and
Captain Vane, were known, knew them no more!
I was about to say that they were never seen again.
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