"Not a mouthful unless you'll eat too?" he stipulated.
Jean gave a happy laugh.
"Perhaps I can be pressed," she conceded.
With a facility which would have amazed the refuge, and with a secret pride in her new knowledge which she had little dreamed she could come to feel, Jean set the bacon and potatoes frying, evolved a plate of sandwiches from soda crackers and a tin of sardines, discovered a jar of olives which their owner had forgotten, and arranged the whole upon a box-cover laid with a napkin. Nor was this the sum of the miracle. She even garnished the meat with a handful of watercress which she spied and bade her admiring host gather in a neighboring brook.
They said little during the meal, for both were famished; but while they washed the dishes together by the shore Jean, under questioning, sketched the story of her flight. Her listener's ejaculations gained steadily in vigor, till ultimately, moved by a startling thought, he dropped the plate he was polishing.
"Look here!" he cried. "Have you had a wink of sleep?"
"I got in an hour about the middle of the forenoon."
"One hour out of thirty!"
"It was enough."
"I'll sling the hammock anywhere you say."