Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/94

Rh with him—especially after I told him that mother had invited you to travel with us for a few days as long as our ways lay together."

"What did he say to that?"

The girl laughed a little. "Oh, he told me with most excruciating seriousness all about your certainly very extraordinary coincidental connection with every crime in every cathedral town which has been reported; and besides, he described some certainly very remarkable and suspicious actions in the towns, preceding the robberies."

"And then?" Preston persisted.

"Oh, he—" the girl checked herself.

"Pointed out how uncomfortable and, perhaps, compromising it might be for you to continue to show the friendliness for me which you have. Didn't he, now?" Preston demanded.

"Yes," the girl admitted.

"I thought so! And, knowing something about the English constitution, I can't hold it against him. For, without discussing now the 74