He suddenly broke into a fit of coughing so hoarse and croupy as to alarm even Mary Amber’s cool contempt. She reached back in the car, and, grasping a big fur coat, sprang out on the hard ground, and threw the coat about him, tucking it around his neck and trying to fasten a button under his chin against his violent protest.
“You’re very kind,” he gasped loftily, as soon as he could recover his breath. “But I can’t put that on, and I’m going down to the telegraph-office now to see if my wire has come yet.”
“Look here,” said Mary Amber in quite a different tone, “I’m sorry I was so suspicious. I see I didn’t understand. I ask your pardon, and won’t you please put on this coat, and get into this car, and let me take you home quick? I’m really very much troubled about you.”
The soldier looked up in surprise at the gentleness, and almost his heart melted. The snarly look around his mouth and eyes disappeared, and he seemed a bit confounded.
“Thank you,” he said simply. “I appreciate that. But I can’t let you help me, you know.”
“Oh, please!” she said, a kind of little-girl alarm springing into her eyes. “I sha’n’t know what to say to Miss Marilla. I promised her to bring you back, you know.”
His eyes and lips were hardening again. She saw he did not mean to yield, and Mary Amber was not used to being balked in her purposes. She glanced down the road; and a sudden light came into her eyes, and brought a dimple of mischief into her cheek.
“You’ll have to for my sake,” she said hurriedly in a lower tone. “There’s a car coming with some people in it I know; and they will think it awfully queer for me to be standing here on a lonely roadside talking to a strange soldier sitting on a log on a day like this. Hurry!”
Lyman Gage glanced up, saw the car coming swiftly; saw, too, the dimple of mischief; but with an answering light of gallantly in his own eyes he sprang up and helped her into the car. The effort brought on another fit of coughing, but as soon as he could speak he said:
“You can take me down to that little telegraph-office if you please, and drop me there. Then nobody will think anything about it.”
“I’ll take you to the telegraph-office if you’ll be good and put that coat on right, and button it,” said Mary Amber commandingly. She had him in the car now, and she knew that she could go so fast he could not get out. “But I shall not stop there until you promise me on your honor as a soldier that you will not get out or make any more trouble about my taking you back to Miss Marilla.”