“She will be free between six and seven o’clock. But we are allowing no visitors for a few days . . .” My voice trailed doubtfully into space.
“But see here, Miss Keate, I—it is important that I see her.” He spoke rather defiantly as if he dared me to ask why. “Will you carry a note to her, then?”
Well, I was willing to carry a note to Maida, so I shivered under the folds of the flapping slicker while he stood with his back to the rain and wind, scribbling hastily on a bit of yellowish paper he pulled from his pocket. He held the paper close to him to protect it from the rain but I noted that it was an unused Western Union telegraph blank.
“There, and thank you, Miss Keate.” He handed me the folded scrap of paper and I slipped it into my pocket.
But at the end of the bridge I turned.
“Why, Mr. Gainsay,” I exclaimed. “I had forgotten. You were to leave this morning!”
His face had lost the youthful look with which he had begged me to take the note to Maida, and had become lined again, and his narrowed eyes were unfathomable under that shadowy hat brim.
“I shall not go for a few days,” he said after a barely perceptible pause. “I can scarcely leave at such a time. Louis was a friend. They have no relatives here. Corole needs someone.”
His disjointed explanation did not please me. I restrained a rather obvious remark as to chaperonage; after all, Huldah was a militant and vigorous enough chaperon to suit the most meticulous Mrs. Grundy.
I daresay, however, that my disapproval was apparent in my expression, for Jim Gainsay added hastily: