But what a stew you must all have been in!"
There was a minute's silence behind me, and then Mr. Pierce laughed too.
"Stew!" he said. "For the last few days I've been either paralyzed
with fright or electrified into wild bursts of mendacity. And I'm not
naturally a liar."
"Really!" she retorted. "What an actor you are!"
They laughed together at that, and I gained a little on them. At the
corner where the path skirted the deer park and turned toward the house
I lost them altogether and I floundered on alone. But I had not gone
twenty feet when I stopped suddenly. About fifty yards ahead a lantern
was coming toward me through the snow, and I could hear a man's voice,
breathless and gasping.
"Set it down," it said. "The damned thing must be filled with lead." It
sounded like Thoburn.
"It's the snow," another voice replied, Mr. von Inwald's. "I told you it
would take two trips."
"Yes," Thoburn retorted, breathing in groans. "Stay up all night to get
the blamed stuff here, and then get up at dawn for a cold bath and
a twenty-mile walk and an apple for breakfast. Ugh, my shoulder is
dislocated."
I turned and flew back to Miss Patty and Pierce. They had stopped in the
shelter of the fence corner and Mr. Pierce was on his knees in front of
her! I was so astounded that I forgot for the moment what had brought
me.
"Just a second," he was saying. "It's ice on the heel."
"Please get up off your knees, you'll take cold."
"Never had a cold.
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