Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/67

Rh "Oh, the next morning when we were all in the hotel lounge—there had been a robbery the evening before and I was standing about, watching the intense lack of excitement—old Dunneston came up to me. I could see that he had been thinking over the difficulty half the night. But he had fairly determined it at last and was in peace.

I say, Mr. Preston,' he said, 'I say, Mr. Preston,'—and you've heard the way he says it,—'it was rather that word "voluntary" that you stuck at a bit last night, now wasn't it, what?

"And what did you say?"

"Nothing. What could I? I grasped his hand in gratitude—I had then decided to keep at the cathedral towns regularly rather than haphazard—and, as I found that Mr. Dunneston, too, was committed to them for a while, I attached myself skilfully to him and have been with him ever since. Do you blame me?"

"Quite the opposite!" the girl replied. "But since you evidently wish to keep me in 49