Captain 'Bias offered gallantly to accompany her
to the gate of Rilla Farm; but she would have none of their escort.

"No one is going to insult me on the road," she assured them.
"And besides, if they did, Dinah would do the screaming. That's why I
brought her."

She had enjoyed her evening amazingly. She took her departure with a
few happily chosen words which left no doubt of it.

After divesting himself of his coat that night, Captain Cai laid a hand
on his upper arm and felt it timidly. Unless he mistook, the flesh
beneath the shirt-sleeve yet kept some faint vibration of Mrs Bosenna's
hand, resting upon it, thrilling it.

"The point is," said Cai to himself, "it can't be 'Bias, anyway. I felt
pretty sure at the time that Philp was lyin'. But what a brazen fellow
it is!"

Strangely enough, in his bedroom on the other side of the party wall
Captain 'Bias stood at that moment deep in meditation. He, too, was
rubbing his arm, just below the biceps.

Yet the explanation is simple. You have only to bethink you that Mrs
Bosenna, like any other woman, _had two hands_.

CHAPTER XI.

MRS BOSENNA PLAYS A PARLOUR GAME.

"We have runned out simultaneous," announced Mrs Bowldler next morning,
as the two friends sat at breakfast in Captain Cai's parlour, each
immersed (or pretending to be immersed) in his own newspaper. They had
slept but indifferently, and on meeting at table had avoided, as if by
tacit consent, allusions to last night's entertainment. Each of the
newspapers contained a full-column report of the Regatta, with its
festivities, which gave excuse for silence. With a thrill of innocent
pleasure Cai saw his own name in print. He harked back to it several
times in the course of his perusal, and confessed to himself that it
looked very well.

But Mrs Bowldler, too, had slept indifferently, if her eyes--which were
red and tear-swollen--might be taken as evidence. Her air, as she
brought in the dishes, spoke of sorrow rather than of anger.
Finding that it attracted no attention, she sighed many times aloud, and
at each separate entrance let fall some gloomy domestic news, dropping
it as who should say, "I tell you, not expecting to be believed or even
heeded, still less applauded for any vigilant care of your interests,
but rather that I may not hereafter reproach myself."

"We have runned out simultaneous," she repeated as Captain Cai glanced
up from the newspaper. "Which I refer t