“My uncle,” said Lewis.
“I had a letter from a friend who was staying there in the summer. I wonder if you ever met her. A Miss Wishart. Alice Wishart?”
Lewis strove to keep any extraordinary interest out of his eyes. This voice from another world had broken rudely in upon his new composure.
“I knew her,” he said, and his tone was of such studied carelessness that Mrs. Logan looked up at him curiously.
“I hope you liked her, for her mother was a relation of my husband, and when I have been home the small Alice has always been a great friend of mine. I wonder if she has grown pretty. Gilbert and I used to bet about it on different sides. I said she would be very beautiful some day.”
“She is very beautiful,” said Lewis in a level voice, and George, feeling the thin ice, came to his friend’s rescue. He could at least talk naturally of Miss Wishart.
“The Wisharts took the place, you know, Mrs. Logan, so we saw a lot of them. The girl was delightful, good sportswoman and all that sort of thing, and capital company. I wonder she never told us about you. She knew we were coming out here, for I told her, and she was very interested.”
“Yes, it’s odd, for I suppose she had read Mr. Haystoun’s book, where my husband comes in a good deal. I shall tell her about seeing you in my next letter. And now tell me your plans.”
Lewis’s face had begun to burn in a most compromising way. Those last days in Glenavelin had risen again before the eye of his mind and old wounds were reopened. The thought that Alice was not yet wholly out of his life, that the new world was not utterly severed from the old, affected him with a miserable delight. Mrs. Logan became invested with an extraordinary interest. He pulled himself together to answer her question.
“Oh, our errand is much the same as last time. We want to get all the sport we can, and if possible to cross the mountains into Turkestan. I am rather keen on geographical work just now, and there’s a bit of land up here which wants exploring.”