Part 5 (1/2)
”Who's your friend, Cora?” Ed asked, in an off-hand way.
”Oh, she is going to tell us a wonderful story,” put in Bess before Cora could reply. ”Wait until she has finished her tea.”
”She looks like a deserted wife,” Belle ventured softly, in her usual strain of romance.
”What's the indication?” asked Walter somewhat facetiously. ”Now, do I look anything like a deserted lover?”
Cora got up and went out into the pantry again. She found the woman standing, waiting for her.
”I do not know if I was wise or foolish to have made that promise,” she said. ”But as I have made it I will stand by it. I feel also that to talk will do me good. And, after all, what have I to fear more than I have already suffered?”
”We have no idea of insisting on your confidence,” Cora a.s.sured her. ”But, of course, I would like to know why you went in _our_ garage.”
”And I fully intend to tell you,” replied the woman. ”Are you all young folks?”
”Just now, we are alone,” answered Cora. ”We are going away to-morrow, and were finis.h.i.+ng our arrangements when the barn caught fire.”
”I scarcely look fit to enter your--other room,” the woman demurred, with a glance at her worn clothing. ”But I a.s.sure you I have been no place where there has been illness, or anything of that sort.”
”You are all right,” insisted Cora. ”Come along. I am sure the girls are more frightened than ever now, for the storm is more furious.” The thunder and lightning seemed to be having ”a second spasm,” as Jack put it.
A hush fell upon the little party as the strange woman entered. Even the careless one, Norton, looked serious. Somehow the presence of a gray-haired, lonely woman, in that unusually merry crowd, seemed almost a painful contrast.
”Sit here,” said Cora, pulling a chair out in a convenient position. ”And won't you take off your cape?”
”No, thank you,” replied the stranger. ”I must talk while I feel like it, or I might disappoint you.” This was said with a smile, and the young folks noted that though the woman showed agitation, her eyes were now bright, and her voice firm.
”Very well,” Cora acceded. Then the woman told her strange story.
”Some time ago I was employed in an office. I had charge of the cataloging of confidential papers. I had been with the firm only a short time, when one day,” she paused abruptly, ”one day I was very busy.
”A big piece of business had just been transacted, and there was a lot of ready cash in the office. It was my duty to see that the record of all finished business was entered in the books, and I was intent upon that task.”
Again she paused, and in the interval there came a flame of lightning followed by a roar of thunder.
”My, what a storm!” gasped the woman. ”I'm glad I am not out in it.”
The remark seemed pathetic, and served to distract the most nervous of the girls from a fear that they otherwise would have felt.
”We are glad you are with us,” Belle ventured, as Cora hastened out into the kitchen, to make sure that all was right there.
The maids had been startled. Nettie was a.s.suring a new girl that thunder storms were never disastrous in Chelton, but the latter had suddenly become prayerful, and would not answer the simplest questions. a.s.suring herself that Nettie could take care of the girl and two newly hired men, who had a.s.sembled in the kitchen, Cora went back to the library.
”Well, that day,” continued the woman, ”marked my life-doom. As I worked over my books, and counted the money, I saw two men standing in the door.
A young girl clerk--Nancy Ford--was nearest to them. As she saw them she screamed, and darted past them out--out somewhere in this big world, and I have never been able to find her since.”
The woman put up both hands to cover her pallid face, and sighed heavily.
No one spoke. Eline had s.h.i.+fted her chair, unconsciously, very near the stranger, and sat with rapt attention waiting for the continuation of the story.
”Then,” went on the woman, ”when Nancy Ford was gone I saw the men come toward me! I screamed, put my hand upon the cash I was counting--and then--they hit me!”