Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/79

Rh "Look, Mr. Preston!" the girl interrupted, as the young American was about to reply. "Here is Mr. Dunneston. His eye is upon you!"

"I wonder what's happened?" Preston mused. "He's certainly even more foreboding than usual and his suspicions don't seem half so inconclusive as they were when we left him."

"I wonder—" the girl began.

"Oh, Mrs. Varris!" Preston recollected suddenly. "I beg your pardon. But perhaps I was getting to your answer after all.

"I suggested a partial explanation, or rather, excuse, for my presence about these towns which, if it didn't satisfy Miss Varris, at least seemed to reassure my travelling companion of the past week. Here he is. But now it doesn't seem to satisfy even him, so I will not try it upon you."

He hesitated, and then smiled mischievously to himself. "But perhaps he can give you a more convincing one; and one which, in your 59