She straightened a chair,
standing against the wall at the stair-head, with a neatly professional
hand in passing.
"Mrs. Cooper and I were fairly wild waiting down on the sea-wall with the
lantern, thinking of drowning and--worse,--when"--she glanced sharply at
her companion and, lowering her eyes altered the position of the chair by
a couple of inches--"when Captain Faircloth's boat came up beside the
breakwater and he carried Miss Damaris ashore and across the garden."
"Stop"--Theresa broke in--"I do not follow you. Faircloth, Captain
Faircloth? You are not, I earnestly hope, speaking of the owner of that
low public-house on the island?"
"Yes--him," Mary returned grimly, her eyes still lowered.
"And do you mean me to understand that this young man carried Miss
Damaris--actually carried her"--Miss Bilson choked and cleared her throat
with a foolish little crowing sound--"carried her all the way into the
house--in his arms?"
"Yes, in his arms, Miss. How else would you have had him carry her?--And,
as gentle and careful as any woman could, too--into the house and right
upstairs here"--pointing along the passage as if veritably beholding the
scene once more--"and into her own bedroom.
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