I like you for it," he added with a smile of genuine friendliness.

"May I say that?
But from the first moment when I mentioned Stella Ballantyne's name you shouldered your musket." Mrs.Repton neither denied nor accepted his statement.

She kept looking at him and away from him as though she were still not sure of him, and at times she drew in her breath sharply, as though she had already taken upon herself some great responsibility and now regretted it.

In the end she turned to him abruptly.
"I am puzzled," she cried.

"I think it's strange that since you are Stella's friend I knew nothing of that friendship--nothing whatever." Thresk shrugged his shoulders.
"It is years since we met, as I told you.