"If I had known what was going to happen," declared Medora volubly, "I
never could have gone to bed at all! And to think"--here she left Carolyn's
end of the settle and drew nearer to Cope's--"that I should ever have even
thought of coming out here without a man!"
She now rated her midnight intruder as a murderer, and believed more
devoutly than ever that Cope had saved all their lives. Cope, who knew that
he had contributed nothing but a loud pair of lungs, began to feel rather
foolish.
Nor did the anomalous situation commend itself in any degree to his taste.
But it hit Medora Phillips' taste precisely, and she continued to sit
there, pressing an emotional enjoyment from it. An hour passed before her
excitement--an excitement kept up, perhaps, rather factitiously--was
calmed, and she trusted herself back in her own room.
Breakfast was a scanty affair,--it must be that if anything was to be left
over for lunch. While they were busy with toast and coffee voices were
heard in the woods--loud cries in call and answer.
"There!" said Medora, setting down her cup; "I knew it!"
Presently two men came climbing up to the house, while the voices of others
were still audible in the humpy thickets below.
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