Philip was the least vain of men, but for one moment certainly a terrible thought did half form itself in his mind, as to the motive which had induced this most compromising visit. Was his little friend Miss Dick quite off her head, and was he in any way answerable for her aberration? The idea was not agreeable.
"My dear Miss Dick," he began, gravely, but she interrupted him.
"Oh, I thought you were never, never coming back again! That idiot of a care-taker and your fool of a servant, couldn't, or wouldn't, tell me anything about you. They only grinned discreetly behind their hands. Oh, what have you been doing to stay away like this, and never leave a scrap of an address behind you?"
"Good heavens!" thought Philip, "decidedly the poor girl is out of her mind, and if Tomkins, or Mrs. Barker have seen her like this, it will be all over town in a week, and her reputation nowhere."
"My dear Miss Dick," he said again, but Miss Darling evidently had no ears save for her own voice.
"It's perfectly dreadful—awful," she continued. "It has nearly broken my heart, and to think you should be away just when you were most needed, and I couldn't find you. And it is so hot, too, and such a season to be shut up in New York. Oh, why didn't you come before? What made you go away at all? I told Esther I would never rest until I found you, because I knew you could do something. You have always been a good friend to me, Mr. Tremain, you won't refuse me, will you?"
The tears were in her bright brown eyes as she spoke, and Philip, roused out of his self-consciousness by the sight of her earnestness, found himself saying, impetuously:
"What is it I can do for you, Miss Dick? You know I won't refuse, whatever you may ask."
"Oh, then go, go at once! Why do you stand looking at me so stupidly?" she cried, impatiently. "Every moment is precious, and here you are wasting them by the dozen!" She stamped her foot. "Why don't you go?" she repeated.
Philip, made more and more bewildered, could only look at her in vacant surprise, a fact that had the effect of reducing Miss Darling to silence, out of sheer rage.