"Many a time," I returned, warming; "but if I ever thought a judgment measured and distilled, it was your judgment of the Celebrity."
"Does the study of law eliminate humanity?" she asked, with a mock curtsey. "The deliberate sentences are sometimes the unjust ones, and men who are hung by weighed wisdom are often the innocent."
"That is all very well in cases of doubt. But here you have the evidences of wrong-doing directly before you."
Three dishes were taken up, dried, and put down before she answered me.
I threw pebbles into the brook, and wished I had held my tongue.
"What evidence?" inquired she. "Well," said I, "I must finish, I suppose. I had a notion you knew of what I inferred. First, let me say that I have no desire to prejudice you against a person whom you admire."
"Impossible."
Something in her tone made me look up.
"Very good, then," I answered. "I, for one, can have no use for a man who devotes himself to a girl long enough to win her affections, and then deserts her with as little compunction as a dog does a rat it has shaken. And that is how your Celebrity treated Miss Trevor."
"But Miss Trevor has recovered, I believe," said Miss Thorn.
I began to feel a deep, but helpless, insecurity.
"Happily, yes," I a.s.sented.
"Thanks to an excellent physician."
A smile twitched the corners of her mouth, as though she enjoyed my discomfiture. I remarked for the fiftieth time how strong her face was, with its generous lines and clearly moulded features. And a suspicion entered my soul.
"At any rate," I said, with a laugh, "the Celebrity has got himself into no end of a predicament now. He may go back to New York in custody."
"I thought you incapable of resentment, Mr. Crocker. How mean of you to deny him!"
"It can do no harm," I answered; "a little lesson in the dangers of incognito may be salutary. I wish it were a little lesson in the dangers of something else."
The color mounted to her face as she resumed her occupation.
"I am afraid you are a very wicked man," she said.
Before I could reply there came a scuffling sound from the bank above us, and the snapping of branches and twigs. It was Mr. Cooke. His descent, the personal conduction of which he lost half-way down, was irregular and spasmodic, and a rude concussion at the bottom knocked off a choice bit of profanity which was balanced on the tip of his tongue.
"Tobogganing is a little out of season," said his niece, laughing heartily.
Mr. Cooke brushed himself off, picked up the gla.s.ses which he had dropped in his flight and pushed them into my hands. Then he pointed lakeward with bulging eyes.
"Crocker, old man," he said in a loud whisper, "they tell me that is an Asquith cat-boat."
I followed his finger and saw for the first time a sail-boat headed for the island, then about two miles off sh.o.r.e. I raised the gla.s.ses.
"Yes," I said, "the Scimitar."
"That"s what Farrar said," cried he.
"And what about it?" I asked.
"What about it?" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Why, it"s a detective come for Allen.
I knew sure as h.e.l.l if they got as far as Asquith they wouldn"t stop there. And that"s the fastest sail-boat he could hire there, isn"t it?"
I replied that it was. He seized me by the shoulder and began dragging me up the bank.
"What are you going to do?" I cried, shaking myself loose.
"We"ve got to get on the Maria and run for it," he panted. "There is no time to be lost."
He had reached the top of the bank and was running towards the group at the tents. And he actually infused me with some of his red-hot enthusiasm, for I hastened after him.
"But you can"t begin to get the Maria out before they will be in here,"
I shouted.
He stopped short, gazed at the approaching boat, and then at me.
"Is that so?"
"Yes, of course," said I, "they will be here in ten minutes."
The Celebrity stood in the midst of the excited Four. His hair was parted precisely, and he had induced a monocle to remain in his eye long enough to examine the Scimitar, his nose at the critical elevation. This unruffled exterior made a deep impression on the Four. Was the Celebrity not undergoing the crucial test of a true sport? He was an example alike to criminals and philosophers.
Mr. Cooke hurried into the group, which divided respectfully for him, and grasped the Celebrity by the hand.
"Something else has got to be done, old man," he said, in a voice which shook with emotion; "they"ll be on us before we can get the Maria out."
Farrar, who was nailing a rustic bench near by, straightened up at this, his lip curling with a desire to laugh.
The Celebrity laid his hand on my client"s shoulder.
"Cooke," said he, "I"m deeply grateful for all the trouble you wish to take, and for the solicitude you have shown. But let things be. I"ll come out of it all right."
"Never," cried Cooke, looking proudly around the Four as some Highland chief might have surveyed a faithful clan. "I"d a d.a.m.ned sight rather go to jail myself."
"A d.a.m.ned sight," echoed the Four in unison.
"I insist, Cooke," said the Celebrity, taking out his eyegla.s.s and tapping Mr. Cooke"s purple necktie, "I insist that you drop this business. I repeat my thanks to you and these gentlemen for the friendship they have shown, but say again that I am as innocent of this crime as a baby."
Mr. Cooke paid no attention to this speech. His face became radiant.
"Didn"t any of you fellows strike a cave, or a hollow tree, or something of that sort, knocking around this morning?"
One man slapped his knee.
"The very place," he cried. "I fell into it," and he showed a rent in his trousers corroboratively. "It"s big enough to hold twenty of Allen, and the detective doesn"t live that could find it."