“By Jove! was there? Come, that’s exciting. Anything is welcome to break the monotony of this dead-alive hole! I shouldn’t have made an ass of myself last night if it hadn’t been for that,” he said ruefully, drifting back to his own uneasy sense of shortcoming.
“I don’t know whether anything happened. The Administrator thought——”
“Where did you see Gregory?” he asked, startled. “I got off early because he was going round to Port Albert until Friday. His yacht was waiting at the quay; I saw it as I rode through town.”
“Then he must have heard something that made him change his mind, for he did not go. He came here last night, or rather in the early morning between one and two.”
“Chum!”
He laid down his knife and fork and looked at her across the table, his face whitening. But it was the pity in her eyes, rather than a real understanding of what had happened, that frightened him.
“Did he want me?”
“Yes.”
“He asked for me? What did you say?”
“I said you were ill—overtired—that I could not rouse you.”