He was not a regular hermit. As Jennie Stone suggested, he was not a “union hermit” at all. And he was a stranger to the neighborhood of Herringport. If he had been at the Point only three weeks, as this old man said, “John, the hermit,” might easily have come since Ruth’s scenario was stolen back there at the Red Mill!
Her thoughts began to mill again about this possibility. She wished she was back at the camp so as to put the strange old man through a cross-examination regarding himself and where he had come from. She had no suspicion as to how Mr. Hammond had so signally failed in this very matter.
CHAPTER XXII
AN ARRIVAL
Mr. Hammond was in no placid state of mind himself after the peculiarly acting individual who called himself “John, the hermit,” left his office. The very fact that the man refused to tell anything about his personal affairs—who he really was, or where he came from—induced the moving picture producer to believe there must be something wrong about him.
Mr. Hammond went to the door of the shack and watched the man tramping up the beach toward the end of the point. What a dignified stride he had! Rather, it was the stride of a poseur—like nothing so much as that of the old-time tragedian, made famous by the Henry Irving school of actors.
“An ancient ‘ham’ sure enough, just as the boys say,” muttered the manager.
The so-called hermit disappeared. The moving picture people were gathering for dinner. The sun, although still above the horizon, was dimmed by cloud-banks which were rising steadily to meet clouds over the sea.