“But you said he said he was on Whimble.”
I laughed. “No, I didn’t say so, Mrs. Bartholomew. I was satisfied to let people think so, though.”
“Why was that?” interjected Lord Ludlow sharply.
The American girl turned to him. “He wanted to reserve a little share of glory for himself. Why should he have told us his special secret, or even write it down in the House, before he knew what kind of people we were? I think Mr. Bannerlee was very sensible.”
I smiled, recalling a somewhat different reaction to my “antiquarianism” that afternoon.
“But what does it all mean?” Mrs. Bartholomew came in plaintively.
“That’s what I wondered this morning,” answered the American girl. “Mr. Bannerlee, I suppose by this time you know the reason why I took that campstool; in fact, you had written the reason yourself somewhere. ‘What a difference a few feet make in the prospect!’ You are a bit taller than I am, and there was just that barest risk that you could see further from Whimble than I could. But when I reached the tippy-top of the hill and set my campstool there and stood on it, I knew I had as good a chance as you of peeping over Great Rhos. But I couldn’t. So I knew you must have been somewhere else when you saw Plinlimon, and I could only suppose that the reason you’d hidden your whereabouts was your discovery of the oratory, after three hundred years.”
“The oratory!” Doctor Aire reached out a hand to me. “My congratulations, Bannerlee!”
“And mine!” said Belvoir.
“After three hundred years!”