“Are you an old friend of Mr. Burnett?” he inquired.
“Oh, not very,” I said carelessly.
“Then perhaps you’ll not be offended by my saying that he seems a rum kind of bird,” he said confidentially.
“In what way?”
“Well, coming up here just for a Sunday to preach a sermon, and then not preaching it, but staying on as if he’d taken a lease of the manse—him and his twelve-twenty-fourths of a sister!”
“But,” I stammered, before I could think what I was saying, “I thought he did preach last Sunday!”
“Not him! Oh, people are talking a lot about it.”
This revelation left me absolutely speechless. Tiel had told me distinctly and deliberately that he had gone through the farce of preaching last Sunday—and now I learned that this was a lie. What was worse, he had assured me that he was causing no comment, and I now was told that people were “talking.” Coming straight on top of my discovery of his reckless conduct of Eileen’s affair, what was I to think of him?
It was at this black moment that Tiel and Eileen entered the room. My heart stood still for an instant at the thought that, in their first surprise, something might be disclosed or some slip made by one of us. But the next instant I saw that they had learned who was here and were perfectly prepared.
“How do you do, Mr. Craigie!” cried Eileen radiantly.
Mr. Craigie seemed distinctly taken aback by the absence of all signs of guilt or confusion.
“I’m keeping as well as I can, thank you, considering my anxiety,” said he.
“About my sister, sir?” inquired Tiel with his most brazen effrontery, coming forward and smiling cordially. “Surely you got my letter?”
I started. The man clearly had been at the keyhole during the latter part of our conversation, or he could hardly have made this remark fit so well into what I had said.
“I’m afraid I didn’t.”
“Tut, tut!” said Tiel, with a marvellously well-assumed air of annoyance. “The local posts seem to have become utterly disorganised. Apparently they pay no attention to civilian letters at all.”
“You’re right there,” replied Mr. Craigie with feeling. “The only use we are for is just to be taxed.”
“What must you think of us?” cried Eileen, whose acting was fully the equal of Tiel’s. “However, my brother will explain everything now.”
“Yes,” said Tiel; “if Mr. Craigie happens to be going—and I’m afraid we’ve kept him very late already—I’ll tell him all about it as we walk back to his car.”
He gave Mr. Craigie a confidential glance as though to indicate that he had something private for his ear. Our visitor, on his part, was obviously reluctant to leave an audience of three, especially as it included his admired governess; but Tiel handled the situation with quite extraordinary urbanity and skill. He managed to open the door and all but pushed Mr. Craigie out of the room, without a hint of inhospitality, and solely as though he were seeking only his convenience. I could scarcely believe that this was the man who had made at least two fatal mistakes—mistakes, at all events, which had an ominously fatal appearance.
When Mr. Craigie had wished us both a very friendly goodbye and the door had closed behind him, I turned instantly to Eileen and cried, perhaps more hotly than politely—
“Well, I have been nicely deceived!”
“By whom?” she asked quietly.
“By you a little and by Tiel very much!”
“How have I deceived you?”
I looked at her a trifle foolishly. After all, I ought to have realised that she must have had some curious adventure in getting into the islands. She had never told me she hadn’t, and now I had merely found out what it was.
“You never told me about your governess adventure—or Mr. Craigie—or that you were called Holland,” I said rather lamely.
She merely laughed.
“You never asked me about my adventures, or I should have. They were not very discreditable after all.”
“Well, anyhow,” I said, “Tiel has deceived me grossly, and I am going to wring an explanation out of him!”
She laid her hand beseechingly on my arm.
“Don’t quarrel with him!” she said earnestly. “It will do no good. We may think what we like of some of the things he does, but we have got to trust him!”
“Trust him! But how can I? He told me he preached last Sunday—I find it was a lie. He said nobody in the parish suspected anything—in consequence of his not preaching, I find they are all ‘talking.’ He mismanaged your coming here so badly that if old Craigie weren’t next door to an imbecile we should all have been arrested days ago. How can I trust him now?”
“Say nothing to him now,” she said in a low voice. “Wait till tomorrow! I think he will tell you then very frankly.”
There was something so significant and yet beseeching in her voice that I consented, though not very graciously.
“I can hardly picture Herr Tiel being very ‘frank’!” I replied. “But if you ask me—”
I bowed my obedience, and then catching up her hand pressed it to my lips, saying—
“I trust you absolutely!”
When I looked up I caught a look in her eye that I could make nothing of at all. It was beyond question very kind, yet there seemed to be something sorrowful too. It made her look so ravishing that I think I would have taken her in my arms there and then, had not Tiel returned at that moment.
“Well,” asked Eileen, “what did you tell Mr. Craigie?”
“I said that you were secretly married to Mr. Wilson, whose parents would cut him off without a penny if they suspected the entanglement, and this was the only plan by which you could spend a few days together. Of course I swore him to secrecy.”
For a moment I hesitated whether to resent this liberty, or to feel a little pleased, or to be amused. Eileen laughed gaily, and so
