At that Robin went off into a peal of laughter. She was surprised. “Why, you did not suppose I should mind, did you?” she inquired.
“I ought to have known,” Robin said, and swept her off her feet. “My darling, my name is Robin, and I’m an adventurer! Will you still marry me?”
“I like your name, and I should love to be an adventuress,” said Letty. “May I be one?”
“Alack, you are more like to be a Viscountess,” Robin said, and sat down with her on his knee.
The tale took some time in the telling, and it left Letty wide-eyed and amazed. When she heard that Peter Merriot was Prudence Tremaine, she gasped, and gasped again. At the end for a while she could only bewail the fact that she had not known it all before.
“And Tony knew? Tony?”
“My dear, it was Fanshawe rescued her from the hands of the Law,” Robin said. “He carried her off to his sister, and I’m off to fetch her tomorrow.”
Letty stammered a little. “T-Tony tied up those m-men? T-Tony stopped the c-coach? Why — why — ”
“He’s not so stolid as you thought,” teased Robin. “The truth is he has an ambition to marry her.”
“Oh, and I thought he wanted to marry you!” Letty cried. “And all the while he knew, and — oh, ’tis the most amazing thing I ever heard! It is wonderful, Robin! I am very glad, for I like Tony vastly. But your sister to play the man. — She must be monstrous brave and clever!”