Chapter 16 - Page 2

a woman. It grieved me to think I would have to hurt his
feelings.

For now that I came to look things squarely in the face in my berth
by myself, I began to see how utterly impossible it would be for me
after all to go and stop with the Cheritons. How I could ever have
dreamt it feasible I could hardly conceive. I ought to have refused
at once. I ought to have been braver. I ought to have said outright,
"I'll have nothing to do or say with anyone who is a friend or an
acquaintance of Courtenay Ivor's." And yet, to have said so would
have been to give up the game for lost. It would have been to
proclaim that I had come out to Canada as Courtenay Ivor's enemy.

I wasn't fit, that was the fact, for my self-imposed task of
private detective.

A good part of that night I lay awake in my berth, bitterly
reproaching myself for having come on this wild-goose chase without
the aid of a man--an experienced officer. Next morning, I rose and
breakfasted in the car. The Cheritons breakfasted with me, and, sad
to say, seemed more charming than ever. That good fellow Jack was so
attentive and kind, I almost felt ashamed to have to refuse his
hospitality; and as for Elsie, she couldn't have treated me more
nicely or cordially if she'd been my own sister. It wasn't what they
said that touched my heart: it was what they didn't say or do--their
sweet, generous reticence.

After breakfast, I steeled myself for the task, and broke it to them
gently that, thinking it over in the night, I'd come to the
conclusion I couldn't consistently accept their proffered welcome.

"I don't know how to say NO to you," I cried, "after you've been so
wonderfully kind and nice; but reasons which I can't fully explain
just now make me feel it would be wrong of me to think of stopping
with you. It would hamper my independence of action to be in anybody
else's house. I must shift for myself, and try if I can't find board
and lodging somewhere."

"Find it with us then!" Elsie put in eagerly. "If that's all that's
the matter, I'm sure we're not proud--are we, Jack?--not a bit.
Sooner than you should go elsewhere and be uncomfortable in your
rooms, I'd take you in myself, and board you and look after you. You
could pay what you like; and then you'd retain your independence,
you see, as much as ever you wanted."

But her brother interrupted her with a somewhat graver air:

"It goes deeper than that, I'm afraid, Elsie," he said, turning his
eye full upon her. "If Miss Callingham feels she couldn't be happy
in stopping with us, she'd better try elsewhere. Though where on
earth we can put her, I haven't just now the very slightest idea.
But