“Ah, I doubt that,” said the visitor. “The hounds met at Grantley, and it is a capital scenting day; if they find, he will have a long ride home.”
“Won’t you sit down?” I said, pointing to a chair near the fire.
“It’s odd,” he remarked, looking at me as he seated himself, “but I have never seen you here, and I have often been over for shoots. My people are only ten miles away.”
“That is easily explained,” I replied, “most of my time has been spent at school, and since I left Cheltenham I have been living with my old governess at Beke. At least”—correcting myself—“she is not very old, but she was with my cousins here for a long time.”
“But Beke—why Beke? What a dismal hole! I have been there to buy tobacco, and rank bad stuff it was!”
“They say Beke is healthy, and the doctors thought Torrington didn’t suit me.”
“But surely you are all right now?” he remarked briskly. “I’ve come over to say good-bye, as I’m off to India on Friday. I am sorry to miss the squire, but, on the other hand, am awfully glad to find you here. You have been such a most distracting puzzle to me.”
“A puzzle,” I echoed, as I rang for tea and lights. “Why?”
“Why did you go to that beanfeast at Mirfield? You must allow that it was surprising to see a girl of your class among that crowd.”
“I went to that dance just to break the deadly monotony of Beke. I worried Lizzie—that is to say, Miss Puckle—I made her life such a burden that she gave me leave to go for once. It was to be a dead secret, and I never dreamt that anyone I met there would ever see me again.”