I looked at her a trifle foolishly. After all, I ought to have realised that she must have had some curious adventure in getting into the islands. She had never told me she hadn't, and now I had merely found out what it was. "You never told me about your governess adventure--or Mr Craigie--or that you were called Holland," I said rather lamely. She merely laughed. "You never asked me about my adventures, or I should have. They were not very discreditable after all." "Well, anyhow," I said, "Tiel has deceived me grossly, and I am going to wring an explanation out of him!" She laid her hand beseechingly on my arm. "Don't quarrel with him!" she said earnestly. "It will do no good. We may think what we like of some of the things he does, but we have got to trust him!" "Trust him! But how can I? He told me he preached last Sunday,--I find it was a lie. He said nobody in the parish suspected anything,--in consequence of his not preaching, I find they are all 'talking.' He mismanaged your coming here so badly that if old Craigie weren't next door to an imbecile we should all have been arrested days ago. How can I trust him now?" "Say nothing to him now," she said in a low voice. "Wait till to-morrow! I think he will tell you then very frankly." There was something so significant and yet beseeching in her voice that I consented, though not very graciously. "I can hardly picture Herr Tiel being very 'frank'!" I replied. "But if you ask me----" I bowed my obedience, and then catching up her hand pressed it to my lips, saying-- "I trust you absolutely!" When I looked up I caught a look in her eye that I could make nothing of at all. It was beyond question very kind, yet there seemed to be something sorrowful too. It made her look so ravishing that I think I would have taken her in my arms there and then, had not Tiel returned at that moment. "Well," asked Eileen, "what did you tell Mr Craigie?" "I said that you were secretly married to Mr Wilson, whose parents would cut him off without a penny if they suspected the entanglement, and this was the only plan by which you could spend a few days together. Of course I swore him to secrecy." For a moment I hesitated whether to resent this liberty, or to feel a little pleased, or to be amused. Eileen laughed gaily, and so I laughed too. And that was the end (so far) of my afternoon adventure. III. THURSDAY NIGHT.