"Yes," I agreed, "we will consider that settled."
"But it is not business I wish to discuss to-day," she went on, quickly. "There are other things more urgent. First, I wish to get acquainted with you. Have you not wondered, Mr. Lester, why it was that I chose you to deliver my letter?"
"I suppose it was because there was no one else," I answered, looking at her in some astonishment for the way she was rattling on. The colour was coming and going in her cheeks and her eyes were very bright. I wondered if she had escaped brain fever, after all.
"No," she said, smiling audaciously, "it was because I liked your face—I knew you could be trusted. Of course, for a moment I was startled at seeing you looking down at me from a tree. I wondered afterwards how you came to be there."
"Just idle curiosity," I managed to stammer, my face very hot. "I am sorry if I annoyed you."
"Oh, but it was most fortunate," she protested; "and a great coincidence, too, that you should be Mr. Swain's employer, and able to get hold of him at once."
"It didn't do much good," I said, gloomily; "and it has ended in putting Swain in jail."
I happened to glance at her hands, folded in her lap, and saw that they were fairly biting into each other.
"In jail!" she whispered, and now there was no colour in her face.
"Forgive me, Miss Vaughan," I said, hastily. "That was brutal. I forgot you didn't know."