For a moment he seemed undecided, and then he ceased his efforts to get away, and said, “I promise.”
Margery dropped his arm and hurried towards the cabin, hoping earnestly that the Archibalds were not yet up.
“This is a gay and lively beginning for a hermit,” she thought, as she made her way around the house, “and I don’t see how on earth I am ever going to get through that window again. There is nothing to stand on. I did not expect to go back until they were all up.”
But when she reached the window there was a stout wooden stool placed below it.
“Martin did that,” she thought, “while I was at my breakfast. He knew I must have come through the window, and might want to go back that way. Oh dear!” she sighed. “But I am sure I can’t help it.” And so, mounting from the stool to the window-sill, she entered her room.
Having given his promise, Martin turned his back upon the sombre young man, who, with folded arms and clouded brow, was stalking towards the tents at the other end of the camp.
“If I look at him,” said Martin, “it may be that I could not keep my promise.”
It was about half an hour afterwards, when Martin, still excited and still pale, was getting ready for the general breakfast, forgetting entirely that he was a hermit, and that some of the other hermits might have peculiar ideas about their morning meal, that Phil Matlack arrived on the scene. Martin was very much engrossed in his own thoughts, but he could not repress an inquiring interest in his companion.
“Well,” said he, “did you bounce him?”
Matlack made no answer, but began to cut out the top of a tin can.