“Well, I’ve got important things that I simply must tell you. That oil proposition was a fake, just as I thought—and other things, too. I must talk to you for ten minutes. I wonder if you’d mind meeting me somewhere—say down on the bayou, by the motor boat shed?”
There was a silence. The telephone buzzed and whirred emptily.
“Yes,” she said at last, in a somewhat cold voice. “If you have anything really important to tell me, I can see you. When will you be there?”
“Any time you like. Say in an hour.”
“Very well.” A pause. “In an hour, then. Good-by.”
Lockwood changed his clothes and had his horse saddled and brought around. In half an hour he started for the rendezvous, fording the bayou, and riding down the opposite shore. No one was in sight about the little wharf where the motor boat was laid up. Over the treetops he could see the roof of Power’s house, but it was nearly ten minutes before Louise appeared, coming down the path among the pines. He thought she greeted him with an air of distance, but he was not unprepared for this sort of reception.
“I’m sorry I had to ask you to come here——” he began, but she stopped him with a little impatient gesture.
“It doesn’t matter. You had something important to say. What is it?”
“Hadn’t you better tell me first what story Hanna has told you?” he suggested.
“No. How can I know——Oh, please say what you were going to.”