“I really don’t think you did,” he denied. “But if it will keep you a little more tractable, go on thinking so; for, whether or not you’ve killed them, from what I’ve heard you’d better get out of here as quick as you can.”
“I’ll do whatever you say.” She clung to him as the hue and cry again came close. A recollection of herself the half hour before came to her. “Andy,” she questioned in awe, “why am I this way now?”
“You’re all right,” he patted her. “Don’t feel ashamed of yourself. You’ve really smashed up things mighty competently for a girl. But, Bobs, you can’t expect to learn to smash sincerely or thoroughly all at once. You’ve got to have a few thousand generations of your sex behind you who really smashed to be entirely dependable at it. Then you wouldn’t be so broken up about the idea of perhaps a little unintentional killing.”
“Don’t!” she begged, and pulled him farther back from the road as two officers approached, bundling an American girl between them. But Andy, recognizing the captive in the light of the lanterns, shook Roberta about sternly.
“Quick! That isn’t one of your people—one who was in this with you?”
“That girl?” Roberta managed. “No.”
“Of course not; they think she’s you. They’ve arrested her for you, do you hear? Now you stay here, Bobs, till I come back!”
He gained the road again, and followed the men having in custody his traveling companion of the afternoon whom, when he first saw her, he himself had mistaken for Roberta. She was somewhat frightened; but, as they paraded her before the citizenry, it was clear that she was more proud and pleased with her borrowed prominence. This lasted only a few moments, however; at the inn, where Roberta had stopped, this girl was identified as not Roberta, and released with apologies. So, as she was sinking sorrowfully back to obscurity, Andy approached her.
Fifty very fully occupied minutes later, he rejoined Roberta in her hiding place.
“Come with me now,” he commanded. “I’m going to take you home. Never mind about any other clothes. Your things at the inn are in the hands of the police; your box at the station is now on the way, by that train which whistled ten minutes ago, to Southampton in the possession of a Miss Harriet Dale, a somewhat sporting schoolteacher from Ohio, I believe. Instead of going back steerage—as she was considering—she returns on the Corinthian to-morrow as you. With a little encouragement any one might take her for you, as you’ve seen. After the Corinthian’s at sea, and there’s no stop before New York, she’ll furnish the encouragement. She will be taken for you; the wireless will announce the news to the shore; so all other search will cease till the Corinthian’s in New York, and she again is identified as not you. But before that time, you and I—on the Cumberland, which sails from Glasgow in just eight hours—will have been safe and at large in the land of the free for some hours. I’ve figured it all out and arranged it. If we can stay unsuspected for a day, we’re all right. There’s an automobile waiting for us outside the town. Come on!”