Right on the breathless edge of discovery I was
summoned, with my thrilling secret in my breast, to join my
unsuspecting companions. I hid the book carefully in my cot. Not
until the light of to-morrow morning could I return to its perusal.
How I was to survive the interval I did not know. But on one point
my mind was made up--no one should dream of the existence of the
diary until I knew all that it had to impart.
XI
MISS BROWNE HAS A VISION
Perhaps because of the secret excitement under which I was
laboring, I seemed that evening unusually aware of the emotional
fluctuations of those about me. Violet looked grimmer than ever,
so that I judged her struggles with her mundane consciousness to
have been exceptionally severe. Captain Magnus seemed even beyond
his wont restless, loose-jointed and wandering-eyed, and performed
extraordinary feats of sword-swallowing. Mr. Shaw was very silent,
and his forehead knitted now and then into a reflective frown. As
for myself, I had much ado to hide my abstraction, and turned cold
from head to foot with alarm when I heard my own voice addressing
Crusoe as Benjy.
A faint ripple of surprise passed round the table.
"Named your dog over again, Miss Jinny?" inquired Mr. Tubbs. Mr.
Tubbs had adopted a facetiously paternal manner toward me. I knew
in anticipation of the moment when he would invite me to call him
Uncle Ham.
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