“What’s this? what’s this?” asked Salt, presenting himself.
She beckoned him in. “Mr. Salt, have you finished with that horrible gore for now? Because I want you to ’phone a telegram for me when the Post Office opens. Will you, please?”
“With pleasure, Miss. But why honour me with Mr. Bannerlee so handy?”
“I believe you’re fishing! But didn’t you appoint yourself censor and want to know all the messages that go out of the Vale?”
“Not any more, Miss,” responded Salt, running his eye over a slip of paper she had brought from a skirt pocket. He raised his brows. “To the Welsh National Library, eh? Aberystwyth, of course.” Again, more slowly, he perused the message. “H’m, very interestin’, Miss. I’ll send it without delay, and you’ll know by the time you get back if the bookworms have the information.”
“Show it to Mr. Bannerlee, please,” she said. “I don’t want him to think I’m rude.”
“No, not for the world,” I smiled, with negative hand raised to decline the proffered paper. “Since I’m to be denied the pleasure of accompanying you this morning, I wash my hands of the whole affair. You shall not have my invaluable advice.”
“If you went with me this morning,” said Miss Lebetwood, making a small grimace, “I could promise you one thing: you’d be unutterly bored. Well, thank goodness, at last here comes my breakfast.”
Now, a quarter of an hour later, when my own special breakfast had arrived on a tray, hers had disappeared. We had been talking of tramps and journeys, comparing experiences, but I noticed that for the last few minutes her remarks had been very general and not wholly relevant. It was obvious that she was preoccupied. At last, having built up a little tower of sugar cubes and toppled it with her finger, she said:
“I was the man in the library.”