“Nothing very bad, I hope?”
“No—quite the contrary. Why,” she added, gasping a little, as though just realizing it, "then you’re the boy who—who saved the pay-car and—"
“The very same,” he interrupted, blushing in spite of himself. “Shall I send the message?”
“Yes; please do. Papa will be worried when he comes to the train to meet me and finds me not on it—especially as my coat and grip and umbrella are. He’ll think I’ve been kidnapped.”
“You were left, then?” he asked.
“Yes; I was on my way home from visiting a friend at Deer Park, and was so tired with sitting, that when the train stopped here to take water, I thought I’d get off and walk the kinks out. Then I saw a beautiful patch of these wake-robins and violets just at the edge of that little grove, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to gather a few; and I suppose I must have gone into the grove deeper than I intended, for I didn’t hear the train start, and was never so astonished in my life as when I came out on the track and found it gone.”
Allan smiled at the earnestness with which she told the story.
“I’ll wire your father,” he said, and called up headquarters. For a few minutes there was a sharp interchange of dots and dashes. Then Allan closed the key and turned back to her.
“It’s all right,” he said. “He understands.”
“I think it’s perfectly wonderful your being able to talk to each other that way,” she commented. “What did he say?”