“You poor dear thing!” she added, to herself. His solicitude touched her. He seemed to feel himself responsible for her, as if she were a very delicate and rather weak-minded child. “You’re not very cheery, either!” she thought. And indeed he was not. His meeting with his sister had upset him badly. Ever since he had first seen her, he had been troubled and anxious and downcast. “And that’s because she’s not human,” thought Lexy. “She’s beautiful, and gentle, and all that, but she’s like a ghost. Of course it bothers him!”
She did not give much more thought to Captain Grey, however. As soon as he left the house, she went upstairs into the little sewing room, and until lunch time she was busy writing the clearest and briefest account she could of what had occurred. This she put into an envelope, which she addressed to Mr. Charles Houseman and laid it on her bureau.
“If anything happened, I suppose they’d give it to him,” she said to herself. “I’d like him to know.”
Somehow this gave her a good deal of comfort. Not that she expected anything to happen, or was at all frightened, but she did not deny that Dr. Quelton was a singularly unpleasant sort of enemy to have; and he was her enemy—she was sure of it.
Just because he had made such a point of her arriving after four o’clock, she had made up her mind to reach the house well before that hour—which would not please him. Directly after lunch she walked down to the village. She found Joe taking a nap in his cab, outside the station; and, regardless of the frightful curiosity of the villagers, she stood there talking to him for a[Pg 346] long time. He assured her, with his sheepish grin, that he had told no one of his having met her the night before, and he willingly promised never to mention it to any one without her consent.
“I ain’t so much of a talker,” he said.
That was true, too. He was reluctant, to-day, to talk about his strange adventure with the cab on the hill; but Lexy made him answer her questions, and he wavered in no respect from his first version.
“There was an inquest, an’ all,” he said. “I’m darned glad it’s all over!”
“It isn’t!” thought Lexy. “Somehow it belongs with other things. It’s a piece of the puzzle. I can’t fit it in now, but I will some day!”
So she thanked Joe, and paid him for last night’s trip, though he made miserable and embarrassed efforts to stop her. Then she set off on her way.