But she has gained one little piece of information: which is, that Claude is aware that something advantageous to himself awaits the successful accomplishment of his expedition. “It must be the P. Ns.” she thinks, as she leans backward on the sofa after he has left her.
And at breakfast Lileth makes another and rather disconcerting discovery,—namely, that Claude and Glory have some secret understanding between them. And although those young people do all in their power to conceal the same from the dark-browed mistress of the house, her keen glances soon pierce their transparent natures, and she becomes cognisant of the fact, also, that their secret is antagonistic to herself.
It is towards evening that Claude, who has been away on horseback all day, returns to the head-station, and is lucky enough to find Glory Giles by herself upon the verandah.
“Is that Don, the newspaper boy, you told me about?” that young lady asks, looking at the small, comical figure, who, on the top of a tall, lank mare, is holding Angland’s horse by the station gate.
“Yes,” answers Claude, “and I will introduce him to you some day before long. You’ll find him a first-class youngster. But I can’t spare the time to do so now, for, Miss Giles,” lowering his voice, “for I’ve found Billy, and of course I start directly on my search.”
“But the false message?” asks Glory, rising, and looking anxiously up at the young man’s face.
“I have received Puttis’s kind invitation also,” Claude replies, with a smile. “Let me tell you all about it.”
Angland sits down by Glory’s side, and, hardly taking his eyes off her sad, anxious little face for an instant, notices, with some relief, that the news of his departure is really unpleasant to his fair companion.
“Soon after breakfast,” he continues, “that rascal Carlo came to me, and told me something in a mysterious sort of way, which I at length made out to mean that a ‘wild fellow black fellow’ had brought me something. I followed Carlo to the black camp,—I guessed I could not come to grief only a couple of hundred yards from the station,—and found a ‘boy’ there, who handed me a piece of crumpled paper, upon which was scrawled some words. They were these, as near as I remember: ‘You can trust this boy. He bring you to me.’ It was signed ‘Billy.’”