“Of course not,” said the girl earnestly. “And I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your kindness. But you won’t—you won’t put too much about me in the Courier, will you?”
“You can rely on my discretion,” Roger smiled. “I’ll see that you’re not worried in that sort of way so far as I’m concerned at any rate; and I’ll drop a word or two in season to any others of my kidney who follow me down here. Well now, first of all I want you to tell me exactly what happened on this walk you had with your cousin. Can you do that?”
The girl frowned in an effort of memory. “Yes, I think so. It was quite simple. We walked along the cliffs about a mile toward Sandsea and then turned round and came back; just before we got as far as this Elsie said she wanted to go over and speak to a Mrs. Russell, a neighbour, about some treat for the village children that they were getting up between them. She knew this was a favourite place of mine, so she asked me to wait for her here, and we could go back to the house for tea together.”
“One minute,” Roger interrupted. “Where does Mrs. Russell live?”
“About half-way between our house and the village.”
“I see. So it was really out of her way to come back and pick you up here?”
“Yes, it was a little; but Elsie always liked walking along these cliffs. She nearly always went into the village this way instead of by the road.”
“The road lying on the other side of the house from here, of course. Then is the Russells’ house on the same road?”
“Yes, but the road winds toward the cliffs farther along, so it wouldn’t take her so much out of her way to come back to me here as if it didn’t.”
“No, I see that. Yes?”