“I certainly told you nothing of the kind!” he exclaimed.
“No, but I found it out. I am a better detective than you think,” she said laughing. “Sit down here and I will tell you all about it.”
John was surprised and laughed at her shrewdness, as she told how she had arrived at his concealed knowledge, and described her interview with his false friend.
“I have not been very much deceived in Jesse Powers,” he said. “But I felt that it was not for me to expose him. I owe him a debt which honor forced me to repay in the way I did.”
“It was a noble action,” she replied.
A half-hour afterward the two happy lovers sought the presence of the father and brother, who were still where Jennie had left them.
It was an embarrassing task for Jennie to introduce her lover to a father who was almost a stranger, although she had felt toward him the impulses of natural love.
But Will took all the trouble of the introduction off of her hands.
“Ha! I’ve caught you now, Jennie,” he cried, with a quizzical laugh. “This is the young man that I wanted you to throw overboard. Father, this is our Jennie’s beau, and a first-rate fellow, you can bet!”
Mr. Somers looked with some doubt from one to the other.