Again the father took counsel of the long-stemmed pipe.
"It might be," he said, after a reflective pause. "It would be, if Miss Grierson could be safely eliminated from the equation. Unhappily, she can't be."
"I don't care!" came from the depths of the porch rocking-chair. "If this miserable detective arrests him and appeals to me, I shall simply refuse to know anything about it! I wish you'd tell this man Broffin so when you meet him again."
As before, the good little doctor had recourse to his pipe, and it was not until his daughter got up to go in that he said gently: "One other word, Charlie, girl: are you altogether sure that the wish isn't father to the thought—about Griswold?"
"Don't be absurd, papa!" she said scornfully, passing swiftly behind his chair to reach the door; and with that answer he was obliged to be content.
XXVIII
BROKEN LINKS
It was on the second day after the pistol-buying incident in Simmons & Kleifurt's that Broffin, wishful for solitude and a chance to think in perspective, took to the woods.