“Really,” said Ted at last, able to stand it no longer, and looking pathetically toward Chris, “I don't mean to be inquisitive, but do I understand you that the father of your friend, Marie-Celeste, is coming here to your cottage to recruit from some illness, and that you plan to entertain him by putting him to work on the farm?”
If either Chris or Mrs. Hartley had been close observers of human nature, they would have been almost alarmed at the expression on Ted's face. It was as though he felt himself in some way impelled to ask a question which proclaimed him a pitiful lunatic on the face of it.
“Oh, dear, no!” laughed Chris; “I—”
“Well, that's exactly what you said,” interrupted Ted. “You said you had a letter from Marie-Celeste and one from her father, and that he'd be down on the three-o'clock train to-morrow.” Ted spoke petulantly, feeling it was inexcusable to scare a fellow half to death in that manner.
“Well, he, Mr. Morris,” ascribing Ted's petulance to the nervousness of slow convalescence, “happens to mean a little sailor boy who crossed on the steamer with us, and about whom Mr. Harris and I have been corresponding. It was funny enough that you should have applied all I have said to a man like Mr. Harris.”
Ted did not think it so very funny, and his face showing it, Chris continued in a half-apologetic tone, “I ought to have told you about him, Mr. Morris, and I thought I had and then, by the way of making amends, Chris proceeded to narrate all the details of Donald's various experiences in a way that was somewhat of a bore to one who knew it all as Ted did.
“Well,” he thought, when he was finally left to himself once more, it's out of the frying-pan and into the fire,' or something very much like it. Of course I'll have to take Donald into my confidence; but like as not he'll come suddenly upon me, and blurt out just who I am before I get a chance to give him a point or two. There's no doubt about it, 'the way of the transgressor is hard'—very hard indeed and with a grim sort of smile on his face, Ted gathered his dressing-gown about him, and with rather shaky steps sought the seclusion of his own little room.