She sat down on a chair that stood beside her, and the colour flowed back to her cheeks. She laughed weakly.
“I was afraid that something had happened,” she murmured.
“No,” Mr. Bishop answered, more seriously, “it’s not that. It’s not that, miss. But all the same it’s trouble. Now if you were to tell me,” he continued, leaning forward persuasively, “where you come from, I need have hardly a word with you. I can see you’re a lady; your friends will come; and, s’help me, in six months you’ll have your matie again, and not know it happened!
“I shall not tell you,” she said.
The officer shook his head, surprised by her firmness.
“Come now, miss—be advised,” he urged. “Be reasonable. Just think for once that others may know better than you, and save me the trouble—that’s a good young lady.”
But the wheedling appeal, the familiar tone, grated on her. Her fingers, tapping on the table, betrayed impatience as well as alarm.
“I do not understand you,” she said, with some return of her former distance. “If nothing has happened to Mr. Stewart, I do not understand what you can have to say to me, nor why you are here.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, miss,” he said, “if you must have it, you must. I’m bound to say you are not a young lady to take a hint.”