Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/92

Rh me on the boat; that I was an entire stranger before you found me in the next place at the dining table, what did he say?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"No; he—" the girl had come to the end of the walk and if she turned about, as they had been turning, she would be brought again into the light. So she stopped and, with her back to the high hedge, halted in its deeper shadow.

"He—what?" young Preston demanded gently.

"He did not believe that we knew you only from the boat."

"But I told him so, when I presented him to you this morning."

"No," the girl corrected gently; "you said only that mother and you and I had crossed together."

"You are right," Preston admitted. "So he thought that we must have been friends before. I see."

72