“We have seen quite enough wreckage to-day without your starting something,” declared Burd. There were signs of impatience on the girls’ part at this speech, so he asked quickly: “What is it you would like to know, fair ones?”
“Oh, Burd, you are exasperating!” cried Jessie, impatiently, adding, as she turned to Darry: “Aren’t you ever going to tell us about those awful people who captured you, Darry, and all the rest of it? You must know how eager we are to know what really happened.”
“It is a pretty long story, and not all of it is exactly pleasant,” returned Darry, gravely, his gaze fixed steadily on the leaping flames in the fireplace. “You must have thought my actions for the past week or two rather—er—curious.”
The girls exchanged glances and Amy said dryly:
“You don’t know the half of it, Darry.”
“You remember Link Mullen up at college, don’t you, Burd?” Darry asked with apparent irrelevance. “The dark one with the eyebrow moustache—friend of Monty Reid?”
“Link—of course I remember Link,” returned Burd, his gaze introspective. “Sporty guy, rather too fond of hitting the high spots?”
Darry nodded. His expression was still unusually grave. The girls listened silently not daring to interrupt him lest he retire once more into that baffling shell of reticence which had puzzled them so long.
“That is Link all right,” he said. “Kindhearted, you know, and a good fellow, the life of a party and all that. But his sister worried about him, tried to cut him off too much conviviality, midnight parties and such things.”
“His sister!” exclaimed Jessie. “Oh, Darry, then that tall girl was——”