“He was very civil in his speech,” said Florrie. “Yes; but the wood’s private; he oughtn’t to be here. Come along, Florence, we’ll tell Mr Warren we saw him.”
The two girls talked a little as they walked on together, Florence feeling suddenly shy, and as if she had nothing to say for herself. Presently, as they came near the lodge, they met Wyn, looking hot and hurried. “Oh, if you please, Miss Geraldine,” he said, touching his cap, “you haven’t seen anything like a letter lying about in the forest?”
“A letter in the forest? Why, Wyn, how ever could a letter get there?”
“I’ve lost one, ma’am, as a man gave me for Mr Edgar, and I’m going to look for it again.”
“Oh,” said Geraldine, “that must be the man that spoke to us just now, and asked his way. If you run right on, Wyn, you could catch him.”
Wyn rushed off, but presently came back, overtaking the girls again as they came up to the lodge.
“It wasn’t the same man, Miss Geraldine,” he said. “The man I met was a stout party with a red beard, and this one was a deal thinner, and a black-haired chap, too.”
“Then there’s two strange men in the wood,” said Florence.
At this moment the keeper himself appeared, carrying his gun, and saluting his young lady; and all three children began to tell their stones. Warren took them very quietly. “I’ll keep a look-out, ma’am,” he said to Geraldine; “but strangers do pass through the wood. There’s artists about nowadays. They scare the birds dreadful. And, as for you, Wyn, you’d best go and look for that there note first thing in the morning: you’d no business to let it drop.”
“I think the man who spoke to me looked like an artist,” said Geraldine as she went off.