“Well, Miss Austin,” Old Salt rose to go, “I’m free to confess you’re a mystery to me. I consider myself a fair judge of men—yes, and of women, but when a slip of a girl like you acts so strange, I can’t make it out. Now, I happen to know—”
He paused at the panic-stricken look on her face, and lamely concluded;
“Never mind—I won’t tell.”
With which cryptic remark he went away.
“Well, what you been saying to her?” demanded his aggrieved spouse, as the Adamses met in their own little sitting-room.
“Why, nothing,” Old Salt replied, and his troubled eyes looked at her pleadingly. “I don’t think she’s wrong, Esther.”
“Well, I do. And maybe a whole lot wrong. Why, Saltonstall, Miss Bascom says she saw Miss Austin traipsing across the field late Sunday night.”
“She didn’t! I don’t believe a word of it! She’s a meddling old maid—a snooping busybody!”
“There, now, you carry on like that because you’re afraid we will discover something wrong about Miss Mystery.”
“Look here, Esther,” Adams spoke sternly; “you remember she’s a young girl, without anybody to stand up for her, hereabouts. Now, you know what a bobbery a few words can kick up. And we don’t want that poor child’s name touched by a breath of idle gossip that isn’t true. I don’t believe Liza Bascom saw her out on Sunday night! I don’t even believe she thought she did!”