Page:Across the Stream.djvu/251

Rh we all are! And has everybody slept as serenely as I?"

"You didn't sleep very long, Archie, did you?" asked the girl, whose room was next his. "I heard you hammering at something after I had gone to bed, and I awoke once and heard you talking to somebody."

Archie, at the side-table helping himself to sausage, paused a moment. He made up his mind that for the present, anyhow, he preferred that Jessie should not know about the return of Martin. Perhaps he would tell her quietly when alone.…

"Hammering?" he said. "Yes, there was a despatch-case, and I couldn't find the key. So I whacked it open. About talking—yes, I was writing last night, and I believe I read it aloud to myself before I went to bed. I never know what a thing is like unless I read it aloud."

"Oh, do read it aloud to me," said the girl.

"When it's in order: it wasn't quite in order when I read it over. But I was sleepy and went to bed."

Jessie said no more, but for some reason this account left her unsatisfied. The hammering had not sounded quite like the forcing of the lock of a despatch-case; it had been like sharp blows on wood, and for a moment she had thought that Archie was tapping loudly on the door that separated their rooms. It had stopped, and began again a little later. As for the talking, it had sounded precisely like two voices; one undeniably Archie's, the other low and indistinct.

Archie changed the subject the moment he had given this explanation, and made some very surprising observations.

"Helena is married on the 10th of August, isn't she?" he asked. "I must get her a wedding present. And I shall come to her wedding. That will convey my good wishes in the usual manner, won't it? I want to assure her of them."