They could not clearly see his face in the half-light. Stuart leapt in with a hasty and matter-of-fact “Of course not. Don’t be absurd. She thinks you need—oh, startling into a keener realization of her personality, and this is her way of doing it.”
“But you said she hadn’t merely gone for a walk?”
“No.”
“You mean, I shall never see her again?”
“No—yes——” exasperated. “Can’t you get something between a mere walk and never-again?”
Oliver couldn’t. The weight of his opinion had crashed heavily from one extreme to the other; as Stuart had remarked, he was at all times difficult to move, either forwards or backwards.
“If she’s not coming back,” argued Oliver, “she must have left me for good. And if she has firearms with her, then I’d better follow. It all looks to me very silly.” And with a commendable absence of flurry, his broad back loomed up the garden, and disappeared into the bungalow.
“Peter,” whispered Stuart, when they were alone; “haven’t you yet discovered the secret of the Broads?”
She was an instant silent, as if listening for a reply to his question. Then it flashed across her in the phrase of his letter.
“We travel light.”