Part 44 (1/2)

He went off to his room, filled a travelling bag, lit a cigar, and then sat down to write a note:

”DEAR HELEN,--I have decided suddenly to go with the camping party to the mountains for a week or two; we leave early in the morning. I shall hope to find you still here when I return.

W. H.”

He sealed this missive, threw it aside, and then began to study a railway guide. To a person going across to the mountains in a wagon, a knowledge of the latest time-tables was, of course, important.

The next morning, while her maid was coiling her fair hair, Mrs.

Lorrington received the note, and bit her lips with vexation.

The hunting party drove over to the station soon after six, and waited there for the early train. Hosy sold them their tickets, and then came out to gain a little information in affable conversation. All the men save Heathcote were attired in the most extraordinary old clothes, and they wore among them an a.s.sortment of hats which might have won a prize in a collection. Hosy regarded them with wonder, but his sharp freckled face betrayed no sign. They were men, and he was above curiosity. He ate an apple reflectively, and took an inward inventory: ”Hez clothes that I wouldn't be seen in, and sports 'em proud as you please. Hats like a pirate. The strangest set of fellers!”

As the branch road train, with a vast amount of self-important whistling, drew near the junction with the main line, Heathcote said carelessly that he thought he would run down to the city for a day or two, and join them later. There was hue and cry over this delinquency, but he paid his way to peace by promising to bring with him on his return a certain straw-packed basket, which, more than anything else, is a welcome sight to poor hard-worked hunters in a thirsty land. The wagons rolled away with their loads, and he was left to take the southern-bound express. He reached the city late in the evening, slept there, and early the next morning went out to Lancaster Station. When he stepped off the train, a boy and a red wagon were in waiting; nothing else save the green country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”WHILE HER MAID WAS COILING HER FAIR HAIR.”]

”Does a French lady named Pitre live in this neighborhood?” he inquired of the boy, who was holding the old mare's head watchfully, as though, if not restrained, she would impetuously follow the receding train. This was the boy with whom Jeanne-Armande had had her memorable contest over Anne's fare. Here was his chance to make up from the pockets of this stranger--fair prey, since he was a friend of hers--the money lost on that field.

”Miss Peters lives not fur off. I can drive you there if you want ter go.”

Heathcote took his seat in the wagon, and slowly as possible the boy drove onward, choosing the most roundabout course, and bringing the neighborhood matrons to their windows to see that wagon pa.s.s a second time with the same stranger in it, going no one knew where. At last, all the cross-roads being exhausted, the boy stopped before the closed half-house.

”Is this the place? It looks uninhabited,” said Heathcote.

”'T always looks so; she's such a screw, she is,” replied Eli, addressed as ”Li” by his friends.

Heathcote knocked; no answer. He went round to the back door, but found no sign of life.

”There is no one here. Would any one in the neighborhood know where she has gone?”

”Mr. Green might, over to the store,” said Li.

”Drive there.”

”I've got to meet the next train, but I'll take you as fur as the door; 'tain't but a step from there to the station. And you might as well pay me now,” he added, carelessly, ”because the mare she's very fiery, and won't stand.” Pocketing his money--double price--he drove off, exultant.

It was a mile and a half to the station, and a hot, cloudless morning.

Heathcote made acquaintance with Mr. Green, and asked his question.

There was no one in the shop at the moment, and Mr. Green responded freely that he knew Miss Peters very well; in fact, they were old friends. She had gone to Valley City--had, in fact, left that very morning in the same red wagon which had brought the inquirer to his door; he, Green, looking out by chance, had seen her pa.s.s. What did she do in Valley City? Why, she taught--in fact, kept school. She had kept school there for ten years, and he, Green, was the only one in the neighborhood who knew it, since she--Miss Peters--wasn't much liked about there, perhaps on account of her being a Papist. But in such matters, he, Green, was liberal. Did she have any one with her? Yes, she had; in fact, Miss Douglas--same young lady as was there the fore part of the summer. No, they warn't going to stop at all in New York; going right through to the West. Hoped there was no bad news?

”No,” replied Heathcote.

But his monosyllable without details convinced the hearer that there was, and before night the whole neighborhood was humming with conjecture. The darkest of the old suspicions about mademoiselle's past were now held to have been verified.

Heathcote walked back to the station over the red clay road, and looked for that boy. But Li had taken care to make good his retreat. By the delay two trains were missed, and he was obliged to wait; when he reached the city it was two o'clock, and it seemed to him that the pavements had never exhaled such withering heat. His rooms were closed; he went to the hotel, took a bath, took two, but could not recover either his coolness or his temper. Even after dinner he was still undecided. Should he go westward to Valley City by the ten o'clock train? or wait till morning? or throw it all up and join the other men at the mountains? It was a close evening. Anne was at that moment on the ferry-boat.

Mademoiselle had carefully misled her friend Mr. Green; so great was her caution, so intricate her manuvres, that she not only never once told him the truth, but also had taken the trouble to invent elaborate fictions concerning herself and her school at Valley City every time she closed the half-house and bade him good-by. The only person who knew where she really was was the Roman Catholic priest who had charge of the mission church at the railway-car shops three miles distant; to this secret agent was intrusted the duty of walking over once a week, without exciting the notice of the neighborhood, to see if the half-house remained safe and undisturbed. For this service mademoiselle paid a small sum each week to the mission; and it was money well earned. The priest, a lank, lonely, sad-eyed young Irishman, with big feet in low shoes, came down the track once in seven days to Lancaster, as if for a walk, taking the half-house within his varying circuit, and, with the tact of his nation and profession, never once betraying his real object.

On this occasion Jeanne-Armande had even showed Mr. Green her tickets to Valley City: what could be surer?