"Who was he?" she demanded again.
There was no escape, and the man knew it. Betty could be very persistent.
"Eh? Oh, I'm afraid it was Jim—Jim Truscott," he said reluctantly.
Betty rose from her chair without a word. She stirred the fire in the cook-stove, and began to prepare a supper of bacon and potatoes and tea, while her uncle went on with his task of securing the windows. It was the latter who finally broke the silence.
"Has any one—has anybody been here?" he asked awkwardly.
Betty did not look up from her work.
"Two men paid me a visit," she said easily. "One asked for you. He seemed angry. I—I told him you had gone over to the sick camp—that you were coming back to supper. He laughed—fiercely. He said if you didn't come back I'd find myself up against it. Then he hurried off—and I was glad."
"And the other?"
Chepstow's work was finished. He had crossed over and was standing beside the cook-stove. His question came with an undercurrent of fierceness that Betty was unused to, but she smiled up into his face.
"The other? I think he had been drinking. He was one of those two I met in the woods. He asked me why I hadn't taken his warning. I told him I was considering it. He leered at me and said it was too late, and assured me I must take the consequences. Then he—tried to kiss me. It was rather funny."