“My dear Peter,” I said, “it is strange that through all these years it never occurred to me to tell you that Mattie is not our sister, though we call her so, and love her just the same, but—”
“Just the same as a sister?” said Peter, interrupting me. He had a smile on his face, but it was a made one—one of those smiles that curl round the lips, but never reach as far as the eyes; at the same time in those eyes was a look of such earnestness as I but seldom saw there.
Jill and I were standing side by side looking at Peter, and as the latter spoke, our hands touched. I knew then, as I do now—though neither my brother nor I ever spoke of it—that the same thought thrilled through both of us: “Could Peter be in love with our little Mattie? To be sure she was barely fifteen, but then—”
“I ought to have told you,” I continued, “that there is a sad mystery about Mattie’s birth and parentage.”
“Ha!” said Peter, “a story, eh? Well, we will have it to-night in the first watch.”
“Very well.”
Peter brightened up again immeasurably.
“Do you know why we altered course?” he asked.
“Usual thing, I suppose.”
“No, not the usual thing.