"French heels are treacherous," she explained.
Minot took her hand, and for the first time knew the thrill that, encountered often on the printed page, he had mentally classed as "rubbish!" Wisely she interrupted it:
"You said you had news?"
He had, but it was not so easy to impart as he had expected.
"Tell me," he said, "if it should turn out that what poor old George said this morning was a fact—that Allan Harrowby was an impostor—would you feel so very badly?"
She withdrew her hand.
"You have no right to ask that," she replied.
"Forgive me. Indeed I haven't. But I was moved to ask it for the reason that—what George said was evidently true. Allan Harrowby left suddenly for the north an hour ago."
The girl stood still, looking with wide eyes out over the sea.
"Left—for the north," she repeated. There was a long silence. At length she turned to Minot, a queer light in her eyes. "Of course, you'll go after him and bring him back?" she asked.