“Very well; I will.”

He gave her a quick look, astonished rather than startled, but there was no time for further speech before Evie and her companion returned.

It was Miriam’s intention to put her plan into immediate execution, but she let most of the next day go by without doing anything.  Understanding his driving her to extremes to be due less to deliberate defiance than to a desperate braving of the worst, she was giving him a chance for repentance.  Just at the closing in of the winter twilight, at the hour when he generally appeared, the door was flung open and Billy Merrow rushed in excitedly.

“What’s all this about Evie?” he shouted, almost before crossing the threshold.  “I’ve been there, and no one is at home.  What’s it about?  Who has invented the confounded lie?”

She could only guess at his meaning, but she forced him to shake hands and calm himself.  Turning on the electric light, she saw a young man with decidedly tousled reddish hair, and features as haggard as a perfectly healthy, honest, freckled face could be.

“Sit down, Billy, and tell me about it.”

“I can’t; I’m crazy.”

“So I see; but tell me what you’re crazy about.”

“Haven’t you heard it?  Of course you have.  They wouldn’t be writing it to Uncle Charlie if you didn’t know all about it.  But I’m hanged if I’ll let it go on.”

Little by little she dragged the story from him.  Miss Queenie Jarrott had written to Charles Conquest as one of the oldest friends of the family to inform him, “somewhat confidentially as yet,” of her niece’s engagement to Mr. Herbert Strange, of Buenos Aires and New York.  Uncle Charlie, knowing what this would mean to him, had come to break the news and tell him to “buck up and take it standing.”

“I’ll bet you I sha’n’t take it lying down,” he assured Miriam.  “Evie is engaged to me.”

“Yes, Billy, but you see Miss Jarrott didn’t know it.  That’s where the mistake has been.  You know I’ve always been opposed to the secrecy of the affair, and I advised you and Evie to wait till you could both speak out.”

“It isn’t so very secret.  You know it and so does Uncle Charlie.”

“But Evie’s own family have been kept in the dark, except that she told her aunt in South America.  But that’s where the mistake comes in, don’t you see?  Miss Jarrott, not having an idea about you, you see—­”

“Spreads it round that Evie is engaged to some one else, when she isn’t.  I’ll show her who’s engaged, when I can find her in.  I’m going to sit on her door-step till—­”

“I wouldn’t do anything rash, Billy.  Suppose you were to leave it to me?”

“What good would that do?  If that old witch is putting it round, the only thing for Evie and me to do is to contradict her.”

“Has Evie ever given you an idea that anything was wrong?”

“Evie’s been the devil.  I don’t mind saying it to you, because you understand the kind of devil she’d be.  But Lord!  I don’t care.  It’s just her way.  She’s told me to go to the deuce half a dozen times, but she knows I won’t till she comes with me.  Oh, no.  Evie’s all right—­”