And with this, the mountain girl escaped into the house.
While her friends on the veranda were looking at each other in questioning silence, Mrs. Kent, without a word, turned and walked away into the woods.
As she disappeared among the trees, one of the men said, in a low tone: “You better go after her, Harry. She is on, all right, that it's Brian Kent. She never did believe that story about his death, you know. There is no knowing what she'll do when she gets to thinking it all over.”
“It is a darned shame,” exclaimed one of the women, “to have our party spoiled like this!”
“Spoiled nothing,” answered another. “Martha is too good a sport to spoil anything. Go on, Harry. Cheer her up. Bring her back here. We'll all help get her good and drunk to-night, and she'll be all right.”
There was a laugh at this, and some one said: “A little something wouldn't hurt any of us just now, I'm thinking. Here, Jim!”
Harry Green found Mrs. Kent sitting on the riverbank some distance above the boat landing.
She looked up at the sound of his approach, but did not speak. Dropping down beside her, the man said: “I'm damned sorry about this, Martha. I never dreamed I was starting anything, or I would have kept my mouth shut.”
“It is Brian, all right, Harry,” she answered, slowly. “It is funny, but he has been on my mind all day. I never dreamed that it was this part of the country where he was supposed to have been drowned, or I wouldn't have come here.”
“Well, what does it matter, anyway?” returned the man. “I don't see that it can make any difference. We don't need to go down there where he is, and it is damned certain that they won't call on us.”