Part 8 (2/2)
”It was on the porch!” exclaimed Mrs. Kimball. ”I forgot all about it in the excitement. It was full of lace--Oh, if some one has taken it!”
”And my papairs--zat could free my father!” cried the girl.
A shout came from the front of the house.
”That's Walter's voice!” exclaimed Cora, starting up.
”Here, drop that satchel!” came the call.
The girls swept to the window in time to see a small man running down the drive, closely pursued by Walter Pennington. And, as the man fled, he dropped a valise from which trailed a length of lace. The girl, Inez, caught a reflection of the scene in a mirror of the bedroom.
”Zat is him--ze mysterious man!” she cried.
”Oh, if he has taken my papairs!” and she seemed about to leap from the bed.
CHAPTER VII
NEW PLANS
”You mustn't do that!” cried Cora. ”Hold her, girls!”
”But ze man--my papairs!” fairly screamed the Spanish visitor.
”He has nothing--Walter is after him--he doesn't seem to have taken anything,” said Belle, soothingly, as Mrs. Kimball pressed back on the pillow the frail form of the eager girl. Inez struggled for a moment, and then lay quiet.
But she murmured, over and over again:
”Oh, if he has--if he has--my father--he may never see ze outside of ze prison again!”
”We will help you,” said Cora's mother, softly. ”If there has been a robbery, the authorities shall be notified. I will have one of the girls inquire. You say Walter is down there, Belle?”
”Yes, and a man is running off down the road. I'll go see what it all means.”
”I wish you would, please.”
The eager gaze of Inez followed Belle as she left the room. The little excitement had proved rather good, than otherwise, for the patient, for there was a glow and flush to her dusky cheeks and her eyes had lost that dull, hopeless look of combined hunger and fear.
Quiet now reigned in the little chamber where the lace seller had been given such a haven of rest.
”What's it all about, Wally?” asked Belle, as she encountered the chum of Cora's brother, who was coming up the side steps bearing a black valise, from which streamed lengths of lace.
”Some enterprising beggar tried to make off with this valise,” he said. ”I had come down from Jack's room, and was sitting in the library, when I saw him sneak up on the porch, and try to get away with it. He dropped it like a hot potato when I sang out to him.
But whose is it? Doesn't look like the one Cora uses when she goes off for a week-end, that is, unless you girls have taken to wearing more lace on your dresses than you used to.”
”It belongs to the lace seller--Inez--you know, the one we spoke of,”
said Belle. ”She's here--in a sort of collapse from hunger. And she has told the strangest story--all about a political crime--her father in prison--secret papers and a mysterious man after them.”
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