Pierce rose from the deck chair, his boyish, freckled face white and sickly for the moment.
“Mean to say—” he licked his dry lips—“mean to say you ain’t seen her?”
“I haven’t seen her.”
“He said—Cap’ Brack said—you’d stayed up there with the men, and that you suggested Miss Baldwin’d like to come up and take a look.”
“‘Brack said?’” My mind refused to comprehend fully the significance of Pierce’s bare words.
“Eyah. He said that the second time he was down—for lunch. Said you were up there. And Miss Baldwin got in the boat with ’em and went up there, thinking to meet you. Brains—Mr. Pitt!” he cried, springing forward and grasping my arms, “what’s come off? What’s Brack been pulling? Didn’t you send that word to Miss Baldwin at all?”
“No.”
I turned to go to my stateroom. I was like a man in a dream.
“Brains!” he whispered in agony, “didn’t you hear what I said? She went away with Brack in a boat, and he lied about your being where they was going.”
I released myself from his grasp.