"Oh, it's all right," replied the other, "and you needn't apologize. I have so often been taken for a girl that I am quite used to it. And now may I ask who you are? why you are here? what you are doing down there? how you propose to get away? and—"
"Hold on, my dear fellow!" interrupted Peveril. "Don't you think your list of questions is already long enough without adding any more?"
"I suppose it is," laughed the other, assuming a seat in an expectant attitude at the base of the stunted cedar.
The novelty of the situation, combined with its absolute safety, so far as she was concerned, was fascinating to the lonely girl. "Now you may begin," she added, "and tell me everything you know about yourself."
"That would be altogether too long a story," replied Peveril, a little nettled at what he mentally termed the cheek of the youth. "Besides," he continued, "I am too nearly starved to do much talking, seeing that, for more days than I can remember, I have had nothing to eat but a rat, and—"
"A rat!" cried the other, in a tone of horror. "You didn't really eat a rat?"
"Indeed I did, and I would gladly eat another at this very minute, I am so hungry. Don't you think you could get me one? Or if you had any cold victuals that you could spare—"
At that moment Mary Darrell, without waiting to hear another word, jumped up and disappeared, leaving Peveril to wonder what had struck the young fellow, and hoping that he had gone for something in the shape of food.
"I wish I'd got him to let down that rope again first," he said to himself, as he paced back and forth across the ledge; "then I could have pulled myself up and gone with him, thereby saving both time and trouble. I would have sworn, though, that he was a girl. Never was so deceived in my life. He must have a sister, and perhaps they are twins, for it surely was a girl that I saw here the other time. All the same, I'm rather glad she isn't on hand just now, for I should hate to have any girl see me in my present disguise. My appearance must be decidedly tough and tramp-like. Wonder if I can't do something to improve it? That chap might be just idiot enough to bring his sister back with him."
Thus thinking, the young man attempted to get a look at himself in the water-mirror of the lake, and was trying to comb his hair with his fingers, when a merry laugh from above put an end to his toilet and caused him to start up in confusion.