In another moment the horsewoman was near enough to bring an exclamation
of recognition from Fessenden. "Hello! I believe it's Miss Yarnell."
"Miss Yarnell?"
"The girl who said she recognized the envelope you sent me the other
day. Perhaps she wants to ask the way home."
Miss Yarnell rode out of the crossroad full tilt, and only checked her
sorrel when his nose was within a foot of the gray mare's. Fessenden
viewed this characteristic impetuosity with curiosity, which changed to
amazement when his eyes fell upon her face. Her eyes were blazing, and
her teeth were clenched.
She did not wait to be interrogated, but faced the calash-top.
"I've been looking for you!" she cried. "Come out here where we can
talk." Her tones were not loud, but her voice was choked with passion,
and she lifted her riding-whip as she spoke. "Come out! I want to have a
talk with you."
The response was more prompt than she could have anticipated. Before she
could carry out her evident purpose of forcing her uneasy horse to the
very dashboard, Fessenden slipped from the landau, ducked under the
mare's head, and, seizing the sorrel by the bit, forced him back.
"What's up, Miss Yarnell?" he said, with stern jocularity. "You mustn't
ride into people's laps, you know."
"Oh, I don't want _you_," she said. "I want _her_." Again the
silver-mounted whip was brandished toward the calash-top.
Betty's piquant face emerged from its depths. "Are you looking for me?"
she asked very sweetly.
Miss Yarnell's arm fell. She stared at the childish face--at the
wide-opened blue eyes and slender figure.
"O-oh!" Her voice was tremulous, all hint of violence gone from it.
"_You!_ I thought it was--I thought it was some one else."
"At any rate, it isn't proper to threaten one with a whip," said Betty
gravely.
"I--I know it. There!" Her arm swung up, and the whip spun a flashing
arc through the air before falling into a field of ripening wheat. "The
hateful thing!" She faced the girl again. "I'm sorry. I've been acting
like a fool. I beg your pardon--and yours too, Mr. Fessenden."
She checked the horse she had already started to wheel, and appealed to
Betty. "I _must_ ask you. I came after you because I thought you
were--were some one else. I thought so because of that envelope
Thursday."
"A Baltimore friend of mine happens to have lent me a box of her
notepaper." There was impatience in Betty's explanation.
"O-oh, I see! But--please!--that telegram from Charlie to him"--she
indicated Fessenden. "I supposed--some one--had sent that--to put me off
the track."
"It wasn't sent from White Cottage."
"Then it was real?"
"I know nothing about it," returned the girl icily.
Miss Yarnell wheeled her horse. "It was real! And I've been wasting
time--wasting time!" Going helter-skelter, she was out of sight before
Fessenden had time to resume his seat in the carriage.
"Whew!" he said, as they resumed their jog-trot pace. "She _is_ a queer
fish! But, Betty, why tell a tarradiddle, even to get rid of her?"
"I didn't."
"I mean about the telegram you sent me."
"I didn't send you one."
"What! One came--signed by Charles Danton, too, just as we arranged last
night."
"I had nothing to do with it. After you went away, I remembered that I
didn't know your real name, and I was afraid a telegram for 'Bob White,
Esquire,' left in the servants' hands, would go wrong. So I didn't send
it. I wondered how you'd get away to meet me, but I knew you would
contrive some excuse."
In his mind's eye, he saw the address of the telegram, "Thomas
Fessenden," yet it was true that his identity was unknown to his
companion--through her own caprice, to be sure.
He gave a long whistle. "Then that wire really was from Danton. By Jove!
if he wanted my advice about anything, he ought to have let me know in
time. Confound him, it's too late now! It serves him right."
He turned to look for sympathy in Betty's eyes, only to find there a
light that baffled him.
"Are you angry with me about anything?"
"I'm not sure whether I am or not. Men are so--so bad, and so
presumptuous."
"Good heavens! Have _I_ done anything?"
But in spite of all he could do to solve this new Betty, she set him
down at the foot of the lane a very perplexed young man.