CHAPTER VI
ELLERSDEANE HOLLOW
Neale dropped into a chair and lifted a despairing countenance to his downright questioner.
"I don't know!" he said. "I know—nothing!"
"That is—beyond what I've already been told?" suggested the girl.
"Beyond what you've been told—exactly," replied Neale. "I'm literally bewildered. I've been going about all day as if—as if I were dreaming, or having a nightmare, or—something. I don't understand it at all. I saw Mr. Horbury, of course, on Saturday—he was all right when I left him at the bank. He said nothing that suggested anything unusual. The whole thing is—a real facer! To me—anyhow."
Betty Fosdyke devoted a whole minute to taking a good look at her companion: Neale, on his part, made a somewhat shyer examination of her. He remembered her as a long-legged little girl who had no great promise of good looks: he was not quite sure that she had grown into good looks now. But she was an eminently bright and vivacious young woman, strong, healthy, vigorous, with fine eyes and teeth and hair, and a colour that betokened an intimate acquaintance with outdoor life. And already, in the conversation at the bank, and in Polke's report of his
