matter who I am?" she managed to say quietly, though there was a pitiful flutter in her voice, and the hand which replaced the tumbler on the table shook perceptibly.
"Yes, it matters a great deal," he said. With a generosity that was now beginning to dawn on her, he averted his gaze, and scrutinized a colored print on the wall.
"But why?" she persisted.
"Because I am convinced that you are Mr. Stephen Garth's daughter."
She drew a deep breath, and he was aware instantly that she was hovering on the verge of candid confession. She moved uneasily, propped her elbows on the table, and concealed some part of her features by placing her clenched fists against her cheeks.
"Well, what if I am?" she said at last, with a touch of the earlier defiance in her voice.
"Are you? Please answer outright."
"Yes."
"And your father is alive?"
"Of course he is!"
"Mother, too?"
"Yes."
"Do they know you are here?"
"No. For some reason, they have taken a dislike to Elmdale, and hardly ever mention it, or the Grange, for that matter. Yet my poor old dad is such a creature of habit that he is always missing something – a book, a favorite picture, a bit of china, and I schemed to come here, pack a few of the articles he most values, and have them sent to our cottage in Cornwall. Once they're there, they couldn't very well be sent back, could they? But as my people have forbidden me ever to speak of or come near Elmdale, I didn't quite know how to manage it, until I hit on the notion of impersonating Percy Whittaker, the brother of a friend with whom I have been staying in Cheshire. Percy would do anything for me, but there was no sense in sending him, was there? He would be sure to bungle things awfully, so I borrowed his togs, and traveled all night to a station on the other side of the moor – and nobody – thought – I was – a girl – except you – and Betty, of course. She – knew me – at once."
"For goodness' sake, don't cry. I believe you – every word. But did you travel from Cheshire in that rig-out?"
"No, oh, no! I wore a mackintosh, and a lady's hat. They're hanging in the hall. I took them off while crossing the moor."
"A mackintosh!"
"Yes. Don't be horrid! I turned up my trousers, of course."
"I'm not being horrid. I want to help you. You walked – how many miles?"
"Fourteen."
"And breakfasted at York?"
"Yes. You see, Betty would have brought me some lunch. Then you came."
"The bedroom was prepared for your use, then?"
"Yes. It's my room, really. Dad likes to sleep with his head to the west, and that is where the door is in that room."
"Poor girl! I would have given a good deal that this thing should not have happened. But we must make the best of a bad job. Now, I hope you'll accept my advice. Let me go upstairs and remove the clothes I shall need in the morning. Then you retire there, lock the door, and sleep well till Betty comes."
"Oh, I can't! You are very kind, but I must go to Mrs. Jackson now."
She had blushed and paled in alternate seconds. Half rising, she sank back into the chair again; though the table was between them, the wearing of a boy's clothes was not quite so easy a matter as it had seemed earlier. The one thing she did not guess was that this serious-faced man was far more troubled by thoughts of a reputed ghost than by an escapade which now loomed large in her mind.
"I'm half inclined to make you obey me," he said angrily, gazing at her now with fixed and troubled eyes.
"But you've been so good and kind," she almost sobbed. "Why should you be vexed with me now? I've told you the truth, I have, indeed."
"That is precisely the reason why I am sure you ought not to risk arousing the village to-night."
"But I won't. I'll tap at the window. Betty knows I'm here, somewhere, and she'll let me in at once."
Armathwaite was at his wits end to decide on the sanest course. A man less versed than he in the complexities of life would have counseled her retreat to the cottage as the only practicable means of escape from a position bristling with difficulties; but some subtle and intuitive sense warned him that Marguérite Garth should, if possible, leave Elmdale without the knowledge which credited that house with a veritable ghost.
"It's long after midnight," he persisted. "I'll have a snooze in a chair, and meet Betty Jackson before you show up. You can trust me absolutely to explain things to her."
"You forget that she is worrying dreadfully about me. Please let me go!"
"Very well," he said, driven to the half measures he had learnt to detest. "Promise me this – that you'll go straight to bed, and come here for breakfast without any conversation with the Jacksons."
The girl showed her relief, not unmixed with surprise at a strangely-worded stipulation.
"I'll do that," she said, after a little pause.
"Mind you – no talk. Just 'Good-night, I'm dead tired,' and that sort of thing."
"Yes," she agreed again, wonderingly.
"And the same in the morning?"
"I'll do my best."
"Off with you, then! I'll come to the door, and stand there, in case you're challenged by anybody."
"There's little fear of that in Elmdale at this hour," she said, with a new cheerfulness. He turned, ostensibly to pick up the electric torch. She was out in the hall instantly; when he rejoined her she was wearing the mackintosh.
"Good-night!" she said. "Next to dad, you're the nicest man I've ever met, and I don't even know your name."
"I'll introduce myself at breakfast," he growled, extinguishing the torch as he opened the door. He watched her swift run down the curving path to the gate, and heard her footsteps as she hurried into the village street. The night was so still that he knew when she turned into the front garden of the cottage, and he caught the tapping on a window, which, beginning timidly, soon grew more emphatic, perhaps more desperate.
Some minutes passed. He could see the back of the cottage, and no gleam of light shone in any of its tiny windows. Then followed some decided thumping on a door, but the tenement might have been an empty barn for all the response that was forthcoming.
Finally, he was aware of slow feet climbing dejectedly up the hill, and the garden gate creaked.
"I can't make anybody hear," wailed a tearful voice.
Armathwaite was even more surprised than the girl at this dramatic verification of his prophecy, but he availed himself of it as unscrupulously as any Delphic oracle.
"I told you so," he said. "Now, come in and go to bed!"
CHAPTER IV
SHOWING HOW EXPLANATIONS DO NOT ALWAYS EXPLAIN
Though weary and distrait, Marguérite Garth was of too frank a disposition to allow such an extraordinary incident to pass without comment. She halted in the porch by Armathwaite's side, and gazed blankly at the silent cottage.
"You spoke of a ghost," she murmured brokenly. "I'm beginning to think myself that I am bewitched. What can have happened? Why won't Betty or her mother let me in?"
"I'll have much pleasure in clearing up that trivial mystery about eight o'clock in the morning," he said with due gravity, fearing lest any attempt to relieve the situation by a joke might have the disastrous effect often achieved by a would-be humorist when a perplexed woman on the verge of tears is the subject of his wit. "Now, if you'll wait in the dining-room till I collect my garments, you'll be in bed and asleep within five minutes."
He gave her no further opportunity for argument or protestation. Closing and locking the door, he left the key in the lock, whereas, by virtue of the arrangement with Betty Jackson, it had reposed previously