"Were they alone on the barge?" asked Denzil.
"Oh, no, the master was there too. He said the boy had worked for him three years, and was a very good boy. Poor old man, he seemed quite upset; he said he was as fond of the girl as if she had been his own."
"Well, that doesn't seem to favor your escape theory."
"No, it doesn't," said she, thoughtfully; "but there is something odd about them, I feel sure."
The subject was of such interest that they talked of it all dinner-time. The Cottage Hospital was as much his hobby as it was hers, and they were full of simple pleasure and self-congratulation that its walls should have been waiting, in all their new and dainty cleanliness, to shelter the pretty stranger girl in her extremity. Miss Rawson promised her nephew that he should visit her as soon as the doctor would permit—and then she resolutely changed the subject to that of inviting a few people to stay.
Denzil was willing to consent. He usually went abroad for a month in March and April, because he had an idea that persons of means and culture were in the habit of visiting Italy and the South of Europe at that time. But his chief friend, a parson of independent means, upon whose art opinion he depended in great measure, would not be able to accompany him that spring. So the invitations were to go out, and Denzil dwelt with pleasure upon the prospect of once more meeting Myrtle, daughter of Colonel Bentley, a nice-looking girl who did district visiting and read Tennyson, a blend which seemed to Denzil eminently suited to his notions of what might fitly become the future mistress of Normansgrave.
It was the custom of the aunt and nephew to drink their coffee in the hall, before going to the little drawing-room in which they passed the evenings when alone. Aunt Bee sipped her coffee and looked at the papers, while Denzil smoked one cigarette—at times two—and also looked at the papers. In this way, if anybody happened to come to the door during this quarter of an hour, they were in full view. But, as a rule, nobody ever came to the front door between half-past eight and nine. To-night was an exception. The bell rang. Chant, the correct manservant, came with an expression of martyrdom from the servants' hall, where he had just sat down to supper. He was heard talking, somewhat eagerly they thought, to somebody in the porch; and after a pause, in which the master of the house stood with his coffee-cup raised and his attitude that of suspense, he came back with a disturbed countenance and nervous manner.
"It's Mr. Gregory, sir, to see you."
"Gregory!" This was the village constable.
"Yes, sir, it's important, please, sir, I understood him to say."