I could not forbear a comment.
“He seems to have helped you in the opening.”
The big creature turned heavily toward me.
“With little Westridge?” There was deep irony in his voice. “I didn’t need any help to handle him. That was ABC stuff. The big trouble was ahead.”
“With the girl?” the query escaped me.
“No,” he replied; “that was my job too. You listen. I’m comin’ to it.
“I looked out for a chance to get the girl by herself, an’ about four o’clock I got it. There had been a fog in; it cleared a little and she went for a walk. She took the path along the sea toward Cromwell’s Harbor and I followed her. She turned back where the path ends at the harbor, and just before a big house, that hadn’t been opened that season, I met her.
“I stopped in the path.
“‘Missie,’ I said, ‘could I speak to you a minute?’
“There was no sham business about her. She was clean and straight and afraid of nothin’, like an angel of God.