“Heavens! I was miles away.”
The padre took her hand in his own and began to pat it softly. It was the nearest he dared approach in the way of suggesting caution. He alone of them all knew.
“Oh, I believe I read something about it in the newspapers.”
“Five years ago.” Abbott set down his tea-cup. “He’s the bravest man I know. He’s rather a friendless man, besides. Horror of money. Thinks every one is after him for that. Tries to throw it away; but the income piles up too quickly. See that Indian, passing the cakes? Wouldn’t think it, would you, that Courtlandt carried him on his back for five miles! The Indian had fallen afoul a wounded tiger, and the beaters were miles off. I’ve been watching. They haven’t even spoken to each other. Courtlandt’s probably forgotten all about the incident, and the Indian would die rather than embarrass his savior before strangers.”
“Your friend, then, is quite a hero?”
What was the matter with Nora’s voice? Abbott looked at her wonderingly. The tone was hard and unmusical.
“He couldn’t be anything else, being Dick Courtlandt’s boy,” volunteered Harrigan, with enthusiasm. “It runs in the family.”
“It seems strange,” observed Nora, “that I never heard you mention that you knew a Mr. Courtlandt.”
“Why, Nora, there’s a lot of things nobody mentions unless chance brings them up. Courtlandt—the one I knew—has been dead these sixteen years. If I knew he had had a son, I’d forgotten all about it. The only graveyard isn’t on the hillside; there’s one under everybody’s thatch.”
The padre nodded approvingly.