"He's a deep 'un!" cried Sellers—"wonderful deep! How's the other one? Bearing up? I ain't seen her about the last day or two. I believe that was all a dodge of Trimblett's to put us off the scent. It made a fool of me."
Mr. Truefitt, with a nervous glance at the open windows of his house, turned and walked hastily down the garden again.
"He quite deceived me," continued Captain Sellers, following—"quite. What did you say?"
"Nothing," bawled Mr. Truefitt, with sudden ferocity.
"Eh!" yelled the captain, leaning over the fence with his hand to his ear.
"Nothing!"
"Eh?" said the captain, anxiously. "Speak up! What?"
"Oh, go to—Jericho!" muttered Mr. Truefitt, and, taking Miss Willett by the arm, disappeared into the summer-house again. "Where were we when that old idiot interrupted us?" he inquired, tenderly.
Miss Willett told him, and, nestling within his encircling arm, listened with as forbidding an expression as she could command to further arguments on the subject of secret marriages.
"It's no use," she said at last "I mustn't listen. It's wicked. I am surprised at you, Peter. You must never speak to me on the subject again."