The Salt Of The Earth by Fred M. White

Adela groped her way to a chair, as if she were blind or fumbling in the dark. It never occurred to her to doubt what the intruder said. She took it all absolutely for gospel. There was no hint of mirth about the speaker. Evidently he was in deadly earnest. He stood with his hands under his long coat tails like a statesman in the hour of his triumph. The leering look of affection was on his face. Adela shuddered as she wondered whether he would expect her to kiss him.

But one fact stood out as clearly as a beacon light on a stormy sea. The man was a criminal. He had not told her so, but Adela knew that as plainly as if the facts had been proclaimed in a court of law. The veriest tyro in crime would have stigmatised Burton as a shy man with a shady reputation. He had the tone and accent of a gentleman, it is true, and he had passed most of his time, doubtless, in cultivating refined society. But there was no getting away from the hideous suggestiveness of his mouth, and the wicked cunning in his blue eyes.