She looked at him in a whimsical wonderment.
"You asked him to find out? And did he?"
"He seems to think so. At any rate, he gave me courage to speak."
Mary grew suddenly meditative.
"Do you know, Angus," she said, "I think old David was sent to me for a special purpose. Some great and good influence guided him to me—I am sure of it. You don't know all his history. Shall I tell it to you?"
"Yes—do tell me—but I think I know it. Was he not a former old friend of your father's?"
"No—that's a story I had to invent to satisfy the curiosity of the villagers. It would never have done to let them know that he was only an old tramp whom I found ill and nearly dying out on the hills during a great storm we had last summer. There had been heavy thunder and lightning all the afternoon, and when the storm ceased I went to my door to watch the clearing off of the clouds, and I heard a dog yelping pitifully on the hill just above the coombe. I went out to see what was the matter, and there I found an old man lying quite unconscious on the wet grass, looking as if he were dead, and a little dog—you know Charlie?—guarding him and barking as loudly as it could. Well, I brought him back to life, and took him home and nursed him—and—that's all. He told me his name was David—and that he had been 'on the tramp' to Cornwall to find a friend. You know the rest."
"Then he is really quite a stranger to you, Mary?" said Angus wonderingly.
"Quite. He never knew my father. But I am sure if Dad had been alive, he would have rescued him just as I did, and then he would have been his 'friend,'—he could not have helped himself. That's the way I argued it out to my own heart and conscience."
Angus looked at her.