“Tell me everything you know, Tommy,” he pled earnestly.
“What do you suppose I got up for at five o’clock?” said Tom.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
T. S.—A. F.
In half an hour the sensational news was all over the little community on the mountain. Ferris was astonished, but he had always been too discreet to inquire too closely into the antecedents of his crew and was not likely to be shocked by dramatic revelations.
Billy the sailor seemed so unperturbed that Tom thought he must have known something all along; but that was unlikely. Probably his own sprightly career had fortified him to bear up under startling disclosures of a dubious character. Mr. Fairgreaves said he had known that “our silent comrade was carrying a burden.” Meanwhile the taciturn man who was the subject of all this excitement went to work as usual.
And Tom sought out Audry Ferris. She was sitting on the lowest step leading to the vast, bleak veranda of the hotel; she was reading a book and had an air of advertising her loneliness and exclusion from the general stir. Perhaps it was only the vastness of the unfrequented veranda which gave this appearance of conspicuous isolation.
“Audry,” said Tom, “I guess you’ve heard the big news.”
“I’m sure I’m very glad,” she said; “my brother told me.”
“I meant to tell you but I hardly know what I’ve been saying and doing this morning. Sounds like a movie play, doesn’t it? Anyway, I’d rather speak to you the last thing—”