"It's some one as knows the story, and is playin' the fool with it. It's a very impudent thing to do! It's not playing fair, that's what it isn't; and I'd like to get hold of him."
Janet's mouth twitched. The young man's proprietorial interest in his grandfather's crime, and annoyance that any one should interfere with it, turned the whole thing to comedy. Moreover, his fatuous absorption in that side of the matter made him useless for any other purpose: so that she soon ceased from cross-examining him, and he rose to go.
"Well, I'm sorry not to have seen Miss Henderson," he said awkwardly, twisting his cap. "I'd like to have had a talk with her about Canada. It was old Halsey told me she'd lived in Canada."
"Yes," said Janet irresponsively.
Dempsey smiled broadly and seemed embarrassed. At last he said with a jerk:—
"I wonder if Miss Henderson ever knew a man called Tanner—who lived near
Winnipeg?"
"I never heard her speak of him."
"Because"—he still twirled—"when I saw Miss Henderson at Millsborough that day of the rally, I thought as I'd seen her before."
"Oh?" said Janet ardently. But some instinct put her on her guard.
"Dick Tanner, they called him, was a man—an artist chap—who lived not far from the man I was with—and I once saw a lady there just like Miss Henderson."