And so on, and so forth. The pluck of the woman! The marvellous patience and endurance! Did this extinguish her spirit? No; she refreshed herself with reading tales of other writers worsted in the fight--Gissing's _New Grub Street_ afforded her the maximum of melancholy satisfaction--and then she fell to work on a new book. And what the character of the new book was the latest popular success decided. Among the seven novels the trunk secreted was a historical romance, a religious novel, a detective tale, some "bush studies," and a book of political character.
Lynn disposed of a second saucerful of the banana compound that she called her ice cream. It seemed to quicken her memory.
"Hugh Rosskin is his name," she said deliberately, "and if Howie gets him it will be a great big shame, 'cause Larkin----"
But Miss Bibby was standing up, trembling from head to foot, and with a spot of scarlet colour in her cheeks.
"Hugh Kinross,--oh children, children--was that really the name? Oh, Pauline, my dear, my dear, try to think!"
"Yes," said Pauline, "Hugh Kinross--that was it."
"Hugh Kinross! Hugh Kinross! And at 'Tenby'!" Miss Bibby looked as excited as Muffie had done, when, going to feed her guinea-pig the day before, she found five little pinny gigs, as she tumultuously expressed it, had been unexpectedly added unto her stock.
Then she tried to pull herself swiftly together and to look--as Miss Bibby should look.
"If you have finished, children, you may go," she said. "Yes, Anna, you may clear the table."
"It's my belief she's in love with 'im, and p'raps they've 'ad a quarrel," said Anna, who was aching in this quiet country place for a spice of adventure. Miss Bibby had not noticed that the girl had come into the room at Max's request with "more lawberry leserve."
The little girls looked at each other with sparkling eyes. They loved a mystery as much as Anna did.
"Oh," said Pauline, "won't it be lovely? Let's go and watch at the gate."
They flew off to stare at "Tenby"--"Tenby" with the local charwoman already there, throwing up the windows and sweeping away the dust of the winter.
It was very early morning, seven o'clock perhaps, and Hugh Kinross, the famous novelist, sat in a camp chair at "Tenby," his feet on the verandah rail, and marvelled at his fame.