“Sure. Be glad to have your company,” he said, letting in his clutch after pushing the starter. “We’re off.”
Ruth did not speak again just then. With widening eyes she began to devour the first pages of the hermit’s manuscript.
CHAPTER XVIII
UNCERTAINTIES
The automobile purred along the shell road, past the white-sided, green-blinded houses of the retired ship captains and the other well-to-do people of Herringport. The car ran so smoothly that Ruth might have read all the way.
But after the first page or two—those containing the opening scenes of “Plain Mary”—she dared not read farther.
Not yet. It was not that there was a familiar phrase in the upright chirography of the old hermit. The story merely suggested a familiar situation to Ruth’s mind. Thus far it was only a suggestion.
There was something else she felt she must prove or disprove first of all. She sat beside Mr. Hammond quite speechless until they came to the camp on the harbor shore of Beach Plum Point.