Jack Burton had regarded him as a friend for years, but even Jack could not claim a very close intimacy with him. He merely understood the man's silences better than most. His words were very rarely of a confidential order.
He was emphatically not a man to attract any girl very readily, and Dot's attitude towards him had always been of a strictly impersonal nature. In fact, Jack himself did not know whether she really liked him or not. Yet had he set his heart upon seeing her safely married to him. There was no other man of his acquaintance to whom he would willingly have entrusted her. For Dot was very precious in his eyes. But to his mind Fletcher Hill was worthy of her, and he believed that she would be as safe in his care as in his own.
That Fletcher Hill had long cherished the silent ambition of winning her was a fact well known to him. Only once had they ever spoken on the subject, and then the words had been few and briefly uttered. But to Jack, who had taken the initiative in the matter, they had been more than sufficient to testify to the man's earnestness of purpose. From that day he had been heart and soul on Fletcher's side.
He wished he could have given him a hint that evening as he looked up to see the girl standing in the doorway; for Dot was so cold, so aloof in her welcome. He did not see what Hill saw at the first glance—that she was quivering from head to foot with nervous agitation.
She set down her tray and gave her hand to the visitor. "Doesn't Rupert want a drink?" she said.
Rupert was his horse, and his most dearly prized possession. Hill's rare smile showed for a moment at the question.
"Let him cool down a bit first," he said. "I am afraid I've ridden him rather hard."
She gave him a fleeting glance. "You have come from Trelevan?"
"Yes. I got there this afternoon. We left Wallacetown early this morning."
"Rode all the way?" questioned Jack.