Page:Left to Themselves (1891).djvu/255

 hadn't better be telegraphed about—to the papers."

"Why not, for pity's sake? You can keep as much to yourselves while you are here as you like. You needn't be pestered by visitors out of curiosity, if that's what you're thinking of."

"No, not that. The fact is, there is—a person who might give us a great deal of trouble and upset all our plans badly if he happened to know that we were here alone—if this person could get here before Mr. Marcy or Mr. Saxton."

Mr. Banger was nonplused. He deprecated keeping from all the rest of Knoxport and of creation this romantic return of the dead to life. Good could be done by it; and besides his own name and his hotel's would attain the glory of New York print. What foolishness was this?

"I don't understand," he said. "What kind of a person? How could you be annoyed? I'll look after you."

There was no helping it. Philip had to explain as much of the Hilliard-Belmont persecution as made its outlines clear. He hurried it over. But of the names, and especially of his