The Argosy, Vol. 83 No. 1 — page 50: what you’re looking at

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40) breakfast as decently as possible. After that we should both get some sleep. We haven’t bothered about such trivial mat- ters lately, but it’s a good thing to sleep an hour or two when you have the time to spare.” They breakfasted leisurely, to the de- light of the old lady, and the day passed without event. At seven o’clock in the evening Jerry started for the trysting place, and left Exmoor in his favorite cor- ner of the porch puffing at his favorite pipe. As he had intended, Jerry reached the clearing by the old council tree half an hour before the appointed time, but it lacked a quarter to eight when Eugenia Delroy appeared suddenly among the dusky shadows of the wooded slope, es- corted, as usual, by the Airedale terrier. Hampton sprang forward to meet her, and she gave him her hand. ‘“T’m ahead of time, as well as you are,” she said, “but I wished that I might come even earlier, while it was still daylight. I’m very nervous; I’m frightened; I don’t know how I had the courage to come even this distance alone, through so many dark places. But I knew that you would be here, and that you could hear me if I called out.”’ ‘What has happened?” inquired Jerry anxiously. ‘But that’s a stupid question. Enough happened last night to make you nervous, without anything being added to it.” She allowed him to lead her to the bench, but as she sat down she glanced back among the trees apprehensively. “It’s not last night that I’m nervous about,” she began, speaking low and tim- idly; “I have a new worry; I have seen a strange man near our house three times to-day, and there is no doubt in my mind that he was watching the house, or for some one in it.” “Does your father know it? Have you told hime” She shook her head. “T wasn’t in a mood to talk with him to-day,” she explained; “‘and I could have THE ARGOSY. got no satisfaction or relief from him. He’s nervous enough himself, and he would have added to my alarm, if any- thing. I didn’t sleep very much last night —TI couldn’t, you know—but I stayed in my room all the morning to rest. About noon I took my dog and went out for a walk. The man was standing just a little way from the house, where the road curves, and I was disturbed by the way he looked at me.” “Was he a tramp?” inquired Jerry. “Did he look like a dangerous character ?”’ ‘“‘No, he was well dressed—plainly, but well. He might be fifty years old, I think; his hair and beard were slightly gray and his shoulders were a little rounded. I don’t know why, but I don’t think that I should be half as scared about it if he had been poorly dressed.” ‘““And you saw him three times?” “He saw me looking at him that first time—though I wasn’t alarmed then, of course—and he turned and walked down the hill. There are so few people living on the hill that strangers are conspicuous, but I merely thought that he was one of the chance strollers that find their way up here. Then, about an hour later, I came back from my walk, and there he was again, sauntering along the other street, but looking at our house all the time through the trees. I went in and spoke to Ann, the maid, about it, and she said she had seen him from the kitchen window a dozen times in the last three days. “Tt watched for him after that,’”’ she con- tinued, “‘but I didn’t see him again until just as it was getting dark. Then, he came through the street back of our house and stopped, and he stood there under a tree and smoked a cigar until it was so dark that I could see only the glow of it. Father had gone down-town then, and I had to start to keep._my appointment with you. The maid is going out, too, this evening, so the house will be deserted—’”’ “Your chauffeur?” queried Jerry. “Father went down-town in the car,” she explained. ‘I should have stayed at (O) .OO AMG S (C@