With the ball in her hand, and Joan trotting along beside her, she went back to the house wondering what on earth she should do and how she could get rid of Joan for a few minutes. Joan found the way herself when she saw the farmhouse kitten asleep on the steps.
"It has run away. I'd better take it right back or Mrs. Erickson will be cross with me again. She said I was always taking her things and forgetting to bring them back."
"Yes, run over with the kitten." Rebecca Mary knew if Joan once ran over she would stay for some time, long enough perhaps to forget aboutthe ball, for there were wonderful things to interest a child at the farmhouse.
Rebecca Mary shut the door of her room and turned the key before she pulled the rest of the papers from the old glove. Oh, there was no doubt about it! The papers were covered with drawings and German words. Rebecca Mary groaned. What should she do? She put her hands over her eyes to shut out the sight of those German words, but she could not shut the thought of them from her brain. She felt nauseated. To think that a man would use his little daughter as Frederick Befort had planned to use Joan. It was despicable. She never wanted to see Frederick Befort again, and she had liked him so much. Why, only this noon—— She began to understand now his extravagant gayety at luncheon, he had thought his work was done, and he had stayed with them to find a way for Joan to give the information he had collected to his confederates. No one would suspect Joan. And she had wished him luck! She groaned again. It was all so very plain to her that she turned and hid her face against the back of the chair.
After a long, long time, five minutes perhaps, she rose suddenly and with her lips pressed tight together went to the desk and found an envelop inwhich she put the scraps of paper. She looked about for a place to hide the package for it was too bulky to carry in her pocket.
Where would be a good place? She opened the closet door. Across one end were several drawers and above them were two shelves. On the top shelf was a bandbox. Rebecca Mary climbed up to the bandbox and looked into it. She took out a hat and turning it over, tucked her package inside the lining. Then she replaced the hat and put the box on the shelf. She stood in the doorway and gazed anxiously at the box. It looked as innocent as a box could look. No one ever would imagine that it held a secret. Rebecca Mary sighed as she shut the closet door.
Then she took several sheets of Sallie Cabot's best note paper and drew meaningless lines on them and wrote what might be taken at a careless glance for German words, and tore the paper into scraps with which she stuffed the old glove. She would let Joan toss it over the hedge so Joan could tell her father. If Frederick Befort thought his plans had reached his confederate he would do nothing more. He couldn't get away himself, and Rebecca Mary would have a little time in which to think what she shoulddo. She must tell someone, not Major Martingale, he would be merciless, but Peter, or, no—Richard! Richard would be the man for her to tell. But, oh, how she did hate to tell any one. Suppose she should speak to Frederick Befort himself, persuade him to promise to forget everything that had happened at Riverside, to remain true to the oath he had given Major Martingale? If she could do that—if she only could.
She had liked Frederick Befort. He was so different from any man she had ever met. He had fascinated her with his talk of courts and grand duchesses and emperors, she thought now a little bitterly. There was an air of mystery about him which would pique a girl's interest, but if the mystery meant that he was a German secret agent she wouldn't be interested another minute. She would only be horrified and disgusted. Oh, what should she do? Never had a teacher in the third grade of the Lincoln school been given such a problem to solve. If only she could wake up and find that it was a dream she would be so happy to forget it all. She shouldn't want to remember this when she was sixty, she told herself drearily.
But it wasn't a dream. The old glove on thedesk told her it wasn't, and she took it in her hand. "Well, Count Ernach de Befort," she said under her breath, "I have spoiled your scheme for the present. If Joan throws this to your confederate he will be puzzled what to make of it."
Even as she spoke Joan pounded on the door.
"Are you there, Miss Wyman? Have you mended the ball my father made me? Can't you be quicker? I want to throw it over the hedge before my father comes to dinner."
And she did throw it over the hedge as she stood on the tennis court. It was a good throw for a little girl, and Joan was jubilant as she ran across the court and climbed up on the stone wall, behind the arbor vitæ to see where the ball had fallen. Rebecca Mary ran too, although her legs did feel too weak to carry her, and her heart was beating so fast. She caught the toes of her white oxfords in a cranny of the wall and lifted herself so that she might look. But although they both looked and looked there was no ball to be seen on that stretch of the road. Down by the gate the guard was leaning against the fence, but the guard was not a ball, and they were looking for a ball.
"It's gone!" Joan was surprised. "Some onemust have taken it. Who do you think it was, Miss Wyman, a fairy or an ogre?"
"An ogre!" Rebecca Mary said fiercely. She felt so fierce that she was faint. "A horrid black ogre. Oh, Joan! Why did you throw it?" she wailed.
Rebecca Mary's feet were as heavy as lead as she went back to the house, and her heart was far heavier than her feet. Oh, Cousin Susan, Cousin Susan, what a tangle you caught Rebecca Mary in when you persuaded her to take out a memory insurance policy!
It was later than she had thought, but the men had not come up from the shop. Ben told her that they weren't coming, that he had just taken them something to eat. He supposed that they would work all night again.
Rebecca Mary looked at him blankly. She had thought that all she would have to do would be to return to the house and call Richard aside and slip her responsibility from her slim shoulders to his broad back. She was so disappointed that she felt almost sick. What should she do?
"Is Mr. Befort at the shop?" she asked Ben, trying her best to keep her voice steady and her chin from trembling.
"Yas'm, he's there with all the rest of 'em.They's gwine to make a night ob it fo' suah. Will you gwine have yo' dinner now, Miss Wyman? It's ready an' it won't be no better fer waitin'."
Rebecca Mary was so relieved to hear that Frederick Befort was at the shop that her chin stopped trembling. If Frederick Befort was with the other men, with Richard and young Peter and old Peter, he wasn't trying to get in touch with his confederates, and she could draw a long breath. It didn't seem as if she had had a good breath since she had seen the scraps of paper fall from the old glove.
"Just a minute, Ben, until I run up and see if Mrs. Simmons feels well enough to come down."
"She don't," grumbled Ben. "Ah asted her an' she said Ah was ter brung her up a tray. Folks seems to think Ah hain't got nothin' else ter do but carry dinner here an' there an' yonder. Three in one night is more than one nigger's job."
"I know." Rebecca Mary was as sympathetic as she could be with her mind full of something so much more important than dinner. "But perhaps it won't happen again. You might serve Mrs. Simmons first. She didn't eat any luncheon, and she must be hungry."
As Rebecca Mary's leaden feet carried her up the stairs she wondered if she should tell Granny andshow her the proof of her story which was in the bandbox in her closet. But as soon as she saw Granny in a thin lavender negligee on thechaise longueshe decided that she wouldn't tell her. Granny couldn't do anything, and she had enough to bother about. Indeed, Granny did look pale and tired from spending her day with the headache. She held out a welcoming hand when Rebecca Mary came in.
"Where have you been all afternoon? I thought you were lost."
"Have you missed me?" Rebecca Mary stooped to kiss the pale cheek. "You were so sound asleep when I looked in that I thought you wouldn't be awake for hours. I'm a brute that I didn't come in again."
"I really haven't been awake very long," Granny admitted when she heard how repentant Rebecca Mary was. "I do wish I were home, Rebecca Mary. It was so silly to run away as we did. I might have known something would happen. I'd give anything if we could be back in Waloo before old Peter Simmons. I shan't mind his teasing so much at home. I shan't feel quite so foolish there. A woman can't stand up to her husband as well as she should ifshe feels foolish. I don't suppose there is any way we could slip out?" she asked wistfully.
No, Rebecca Mary didn't think there was any way, and even if there had been she couldn't take it until she had told her story to Richard and showed him the scraps of paper. But she would not tell Granny that; she could only kiss Granny again and pet her and tell her that Richard had said that they would be free soon to go where they pleased.
She told Granny also what old Peter Simmons had said, that he had proved the decision he had made on his wedding day, that his wife had perfected his life. She made a very pretty speech of it, and it pleased Granny enormously.
"He always did have a nimble tongue," she murmured. "And he really does have a lot of patience with me. Here is Ben with my dinner. I hope you brought a lot, Ben. You know I didn't have any luncheon."
"Yas'm. Ah hopes you gwine ter like the lower half of this spring chicken, Mrs. Simmons? When Ah took the dinner out ter the shop Mr. Simmons, he sez what you gwine give Mrs. Simmons fer her dinner? An' when Ah done tell him spring chicken he sez ter brung you de lower half 'cause you gwine ter like de dark meat better'n you do de white."
"He did?" Granny was surprised. "Well! well! So he does know what I like. Rebecca Mary, why do you suppose he always asks me? Perhaps he has remembered other things, too. Didn't I tell you he was a great tease? Run down to your own dinner, child. I shall do very well. And you and Joan must be hungry."
Rebecca Mary had never felt less hungry in her life but she obediently ran down. She thought she wouldn't eat a mouthful until she saw the array of good things which Ben had prepared when she suddenly discovered that she was hungry. Nothing would be gained by starving herself, she thought, as she patted Joan's shoulder.
"We shall serve ourselves," she told Ben. "And will you please go over to the shop and ask Mr. Cabot if I may speak to him at once?"
"Ah dunno as Ah dares. Old Mr. Simmons said he didn't want ter see any one 'thin gunshot ob dat shop ter night. Maybe Ah could stand away an' holler," he suggested helpfully.
"Never mind then." Rebecca Mary spoke as carelessly as she could. "Perhaps he'll be up before long."
"If you ast me Ah'd say they won't be along 'fo' sunrise. Ah'm to take 'em another meal at midnight.That 'speriment suah makes 'em hungry."
"You can tell Mr. Cabot then that I should like to speak to him at once." Midnight was better than nothing, than morning.
"Yas'm. Maybe Ah can. Ah can try."
"Do you want to tell we why you want to talk to Mr. Cabot?" asked Joan curiously. "You haven't talked to me very much since we came to dinner."
"I think I must be tired. Suppose you talk to me? What did Mrs. Erickson say when you took the kitten back?" It was a safe question for Mrs. Erickson was sure to say considerable. Joan repeated Mrs. Erickson's words and added enough of her own to last through dinner. She caught Rebecca Mary's hand as they rose from the table.
"Shall we go and play ball, Miss Wyman? I have a new tennis ball I borrowed from Mr. Marshall."
Ball! Rebecca Mary never wanted to see another ball in her life. There had been one ball too many in it as it was. She forced herself to smile at Joan. "I must go up to Granny, honey," she said slowly. "She has been alone all day. You will have to play by yourself. If Mr. Cabot comesup from the shop, or Mr. Peter, or even old Mr. Simmons, will you call me, please?"
She stood in the doorway and looked across the lawn in the direction of the shop. The chatter of the gasoline engine came to her faintly, puff-puff. She wondered if she should run across and call to Richard herself, and she decided that she had better wait. She must do nothing to make Frederick Befort suspect that she knew why he was at Riverside.
When at last she went upstairs she found that Granny was not inclined for conversation.
"If you'll hand me that book, Rebecca Mary, I'll finish it. There is a silly little heroine in it who can't make up her mind which of three men she loves."
"Do you think it is always easy for a girl to know what to do?" Rebecca Mary asked wistfully. Rebecca Mary was almost overwhelmed at the number of things she had discovered that a girl should know.
Granny began a rather scornful speech but as she looked at Rebecca Mary's troubled little face she changed it for a more sympathetic one.
"No, I don't. I think it's very hard sometimes for every one, for even an old lady, to know what is best to do. But if you were in a book, RebeccaMary, it would be easy. All you would have to do would be to wait for your knight of the four-leaf clover," she laughed.
"Oh, that!" Rebecca Mary had lost all pleasure in her mysterious talisman; it had brought her all at once such a huge amount of bad luck. "But how am I going to find him?" she asked impatiently. "It's weeks since that day at the Waloo, and I don't know any more than I did then."
"Don't you?" Granny raised quizzical eyebrows.
"Well, not much." Rebecca Mary didn't wish to talk of clover leaves, but it would be easier to follow Granny's lead than to offer one of her own. If she talked of what was really in her thoughts she would frighten Granny into hysterics. "I know that Peter and Mr. Cabot were there that afternoon and Wallie Marshall and George Barton. Even old Major Martingale was there eating hot buttered toast, but I can't make one of them say that he gave me that clover leaf. You don't think it was Major Martingale, do you?" Rebecca Mary would rather never know the truth if fat old Major Martingale had given her the talisman.
Granny chuckled. "Ask him, Rebecca Mary. Run along and ask him. You are sillier than this silly heroine."
Rebecca Mary never passed such an evening in her life. It was long, endlessly long, and dreary and lonely, for Joan went to bed and Granny insisted on following the adventures of her silly heroine. Rebecca Mary thought she would go mad as she stood on the terrace and listened to the chattering gasoline engine or raced up the stairs to see if the bandbox was still on the top shelf of her closet.
At last she couldn't wait another minute. She didn't care what old Peter Simmons had told Ben. She would go within gunshot of the shop and call to—she wasn't sure yet whether she would call for Frederick Befort and beg him to turn over a new leaf and be loyal to the men with whom he was working, or to Richard and tell him the suspicion which was tormenting her. She couldn't go to bed until she had told some one. She called herself names because she hadn't gone to the shop at once.
Ben had forgotten to turn on the lights and the hall stretched before her as dark as Egypt. She felt as if she were making her way through a length of black velvet as she went down the stairs. But as she turned to run out of the side door, which was the shortest way to the shop, she saw a thread of light. It came from the right, from the roomMajor Martingale used as an office. The door was always kept locked, but now it was ajar.
Through the wide crack Rebecca Mary could see a light on the desk beside which a man was standing as he fumbled among the Major's papers. He was too tall and not wide enough to be Major Martingale, and even before he turned so that the light fell on his face Rebecca Mary knew who he was.
Quickly, without taking even a second to think, Rebecca Mary pulled the door shut. The key was in the lock, on the outside, and she turned it. Then she leaned against the door frightened to death and ready to cry.
Rebecca Mary had caught a spy! And, oh, how she wished that she hadn't. When she turned the key she had felt like Joan of Arc but immediately she became the most arrant little coward that ever was. She leaned against the door and trembled in every inch. She didn't know what to do with her spy now that she had caught him.
Of course, there was but one thing to do. She would have to tell old Peter Simmons and give him the key. And now that she had Frederick Befort locked in Major Martingale's office she was sorry. She had liked Frederick Befort. He was so different from any man she ever had met. He had seemed romance to her with his title, his centuries-old château, his rose-embowered country, his stories of boar hunts and kaisers and grand duchesses, and all sorts of people such as Rebecca Mary had never met on her way to and from the Lincoln school.
But Rebecca Mary had learned a lot of the little grand duchy about which she had known so little, and she knew that while there were many men inLuxembourg who had hated and feared German power there were others who would have welcomed it. Frederick Befort had told her that himself, and she had read it in a book, also. Frederick Befort had been at school in Germany, he had been born and raised almost in Germany; only the width of a river had separated him from Germany. How did they really know whether he actually had come from the Luxembourg side of the River Sure? But whether he was in sympathy with Germany or not he had stolen the secret of the great experiment which Germany wanted. That was the one thing Rebecca Mary was sure of. She had the proof of that.
And if he was a traitor he should suffer only—only—— There was Joan! As she remembered Joan, Rebecca Mary wanted to open the door and plead with Frederick Befort, make him promise to forget all about Germany, to keep faith with old Peter Simmons. If he would do that, if he could make Rebecca Mary trust him again she might—she might—— It would be too horrible for Joan to be labeled the daughter of a spy.
It was so horrible to Rebecca Mary that her hand was on the key when she heard a smothered exclamation and a thud as if a movable body had suddenly come in contact with an immovable body. RebeccaMary cowered down beside the door and held her breath until the hall was flooded with light, and she raised her frightened eyes and saw Richard Cabot staring at her.
"What are you doing there?" He could not believe that she was listening. Rebecca Mary was not the sort of a girl who would listen at keyholes.
"H-sh!" She waved a frantic beckoning hand to him. She was so glad that it was Richard who had found her. He was so sensible, so dependable, he was Waloo's youngest bank vice-president and so was a man whom many people trusted. She had never appreciated what it meant to be sure she could trust a man before. A little glow broke through the smothering blackness which had enshrouded her as she thought of how she could trust Richard. Rebecca Mary knew that she was quite incapable of handling this situation, but she knew that Richard could handle it. She could not imagine a situation which Richard could not handle. So when Richard asked her with a compelling mixture of curiosity and determination: "What's in there?" she stammered painfully, but she told him. "A leak!"
"A leak?" he repeated stupidly for he had not heard the words Major Martingale and the others were constantly using and which had impressedthemselves upon Rebecca Mary's brain. He stared at the hand which clung to the door knob. If there was a leak, although Richard did not see how that could be for there were no pipes in the office to leak, did Rebecca Mary think she could stop it by clinging to the door?
Rebecca Mary put out her other hand and clutched his arm. She had to feel him as well as see him. "I know Major Martingale has been afraid of a leak," she faltered, "and as I was coming down the stairs I saw that this door was open. You know it always has been kept locked." She went on more hurriedly after she had started as if she wished to finish her story as soon as possible. "And I saw a man at Major Martingale's desk. I did! It wasn't my imagination. I really saw him and I shut the door and—and locked it. He hasn't made a sound so he couldn't have heard me. But—but I'm frightened!" And indeed she looked frightened.
Richard frowned, but he put his hands over the fingers on his arm. "Did you see who he was?" he asked quickly in a hushed voice, almost a whisper.
She didn't answer. She simply couldn't tell him that she had, that the man who was rifling Major Martingale's desk was Frederick Befort, CountErnach de Befort. Richard pressed her fingers gently.
"Was it Befort?" he asked in that same quick whisper.
Rebecca Mary pulled her fingers from him. "How did you know? Oh, I've told you! I've just the same as told you!" She covered her face with her hands.
Richard reached behind her and turned the key in the lock so that the door could be opened while Rebecca Mary watched him in cold despair. She couldn't understand why he did that. Surely Richard could be trusted. After Richard had unlocked the door he put his arm around Rebecca Mary and drew her out on the terrace.
"But—but——" objected Rebecca Mary, who couldn't understand why he wanted to take her away unless he wished to give Frederick Befort an opportunity to escape.
"Rebecca Mary," Richard said most irrelevantly as he drew her out with him, "you are a goose. A dear little goose," he added as if to explain to Rebecca Mary exactly what kind of a goose she was.
Rebecca Mary pulled herself away impatiently. Why should Richard waste time calling her names when there was a spy in Major Martingale's office?She stammered as she tried to tell him that there were other things for him to do now than to call her names. With a laugh Richard tightened the arm which was still around her.
"I'm going to tell you something," he said, bending his head so that he could speak directly into her pink ear. "When you locked Befort in the office you locked up the man who invented the thing we are working on. Yes, you did!" as Rebecca Mary pushed him away with a funny little strangled exclamation. "Wait a minute and listen! Yes, I know that we have all been afraid of a leak, but there hasn't been one. No, there hasn't! Listen! You know Befort comes from Luxembourg?" Rebecca Mary nodded a dazed head. She did know that, from the River Sure. "And how hot he is at the way the Germans have treated his country and his grand duchess? He was so mad that he couldn't stay neutral. He joined the French Foreign Legion and fought until he was wounded and discharged. He had invented this—this"—evidently Richard didn't know what to call the great experiment when he was talking to Rebecca Mary—"this thing," he said at last. "He had talked about it to the kaiser before he perfected it, and the kaiser wanted him to promise to give the thing to Germany. Joanand her mother had come to this country. The countess was an American, you know. She died and Befort came over for Joan. He decided he couldn't find a safer place to work out his idea than the United States. He came to Waloo and worked alone for months. Then he discovered that German agents were watching him, and he was afraid they would steal his plans. He was in the bank one day and talked to me. He never spoke of Joan so perhaps it isn't strange that I didn't connect your loan child with him. I arranged for him to meet Mr. Simmons. The thing was just in his line, and he could give Befort protection. Mr. Simmons found him a place in his factory and mechanics to help him and got the government interested for it is a big thing, a mighty big thing. Everybody came down here to finish up the job where there would be no chance of German I. W. W. interference. But you see Befort didn't have to steal the plans. He had them in the brain that invented them."
"Oh!" Rebecca Mary couldn't say another word to save her life. Her face crimsoned. She wished the terrace would open and drop her into Pekin or Shanghai. She didn't care which. How could she have made such a mistake? "But the ball!" she exclaimed suddenly, and she told Richard about theglove which Frederick Befort had turned into a ball and which was stuffed with drawings and notes for something.
"I've no doubt it was. Befort has a lot of ideas, and if he took any papers from his pocket they would be sure to be covered with drawings and figures. As for German words, you know he was practically brought up in Germany?"
"Yes," sighed Rebecca Mary. It was all so clear now that Richard had explained it to her. "No wonder you called me a goose," she said ruefully.
"A dear little goose!" When Richard was quoted he wished to be quoted exactly. His voice was very tender as he corrected Rebecca Mary.
"A goose," repeated Rebecca Mary somewhat crossly. She was in no mood for tenderness, she was too ashamed and mortified. She was almost inclined to blame Richard for the mistake she had made. If he had only told her something—anything. But if he hadn't come stumbling over the hall chair she might have accused Frederick Befort to his face. "Oh," she wailed, "I never want to see Frederick Befort again! What shall I do? I never want to see him again!"
"Don't you?" Richard seemed quite pleased tohear that she had seen enough of the romantic Luxembourg count. He had feared that Rebecca Mary might wish to see a lot more of him. "Well, you don't have to see him again," he said quickly. "I'm going to Waloo in the morning, and I'll take you with me."
"Will you?" Rebecca Mary couldn't believe there was such a simple solution to her puzzle. "Can you?" She remembered that one could not go from Riverside as one pleased.
"Sure I can." Richard spoke quite confidently. "I'd take you this minute but you've worn yourself out over this thing and you need sleep."
"I don't feel that I shall sleep until I am back in Waloo," sighed Rebecca Mary, and her lip quivered.
"Yes, you will. You'll be asleep as soon as your head touches the pillow now that you have nothing to bother over. You meet me at—is six-thirty too early? I have to go up and back before noon so I must start early."
He couldn't start too early to suit her. "There's Granny!" Rebecca Mary had almost forgotten Granny.
If Richard had thought he was going to take an early morning ride with no one but Rebecca Maryhe hid his disappointment very well when he learned that they were to have company.
"Sure, there's Granny. We'll take her with us."
"And Joan?" doubtfully. Perhaps Richard would think that Joan should be left with her father.
But Richard didn't. "Joan, too. Her father will be too busy for the next twenty-four hours to look after her. He was so excited we had to send him away to-day." So that was why Frederick Befort had not been at the shop. "It has been a great day for him and unless I miss my guess there will be a greater one to-morrow." And so that was why Frederick Befort had asked her to wish him luck. Rebecca Mary blushed again as Richard went on. "Six-thirty, you know. And not a word to any one!" And lowering his voice, he whispered a few directions. He chuckled as if he were going to enjoy carrying Rebecca Mary away from Riverside. There seemed to be more in his mind than he was telling Rebecca Mary.
But Rebecca Mary was not critical nor observing. She was only grateful.
"I'll never forget your heavenly goodness!" she exclaimed as she turned to go in and tell Granny that they were to leave Riverside at six-thirty in the morning, that Granny was to have her wish andreach home before old Peter Simmons. "I'll remember it to my dying day!"
"Will you, Rebecca Mary?" Richard seemed quite pleased to hear how long he was to be remembered, and he caught her hand and pressed it before he let her go. "Will you?"
If Richard was a tower of strength that night he was a veritable magician the next morning, for he extracted the two women and a half from a carefully guarded place as easily as most men would take a friend out for a walk or to a theater or church. Granny had been delighted to accept Richard's kind invitation to run away to Waloo. Her faded blue eyes sparkled when Rebecca Mary gave it to her.
"Of course, I'll go," she said at once. "It's too great a strain to be under the same roof with old Peter Simmons. I'm crazy to see him, Rebecca Mary, but I don't dare. Perhaps if I run away again he'll know that I don't want to be teased. I simply can't discuss a golden wedding present now. We've done it too often. But I don't know what I'll do, Rebecca Mary, if he doesn't remember what we planned. If I weren't so proud I should tell him that it begins with an H. But I can't even do that, Rebecca Mary. It's funny I should feel this wayafter fifty years, but I do. I can't help it even if I do know how silly it is."
So in the early morning Granny and Rebecca Mary and a very sleepy Joan left the house as stealthily as if they had been robbing Riverside and made their way from one clump of shrubbery to another to the gate. It thrilled Rebecca Mary, whose teeth fairly chattered. It even thrilled old Granny a bit, but it only puzzled Joan, who could not understand why she had been wakened so early nor why she was being taken from Riverside without saying good-by to her father although Granny told her that they had left a note for her father and one for old Peter Simmons. How Rebecca Mary did blush when Count Ernach de Befort was mentioned!
Before they reached the gate Richard came down the driveway in the car which had brought Granny and Rebecca Mary and Joan to Riverside. He stopped to speak to the guard, who was on the other side of the car so that the three prisoners were able to slip by it and hide themselves in the bushes which were most conveniently placed just outside the gate.
"Pooh!" exclaimed Granny as she settled herself in the tonneau with Joan, "if I had known how easy it would be I shouldn't have stayed twenty-fourhours. Oh, well, I don't know as I care so long as I shall get home before old Peter Simmons. We have had a rest and a change. I don't often find fault with an experience after it is over. I did want to go to Seven Pines before the golden wedding, but perhaps it is just as well. You haven't anything to complain of, have you, Rebecca Mary? Riverside was more interesting for you than Seven Pines would have been. Wasn't it?"
"Much more interesting!" Rebecca Mary had never seen a foot of Seven Pines and so should not have been so quick to decide that Riverside was more interesting. "I'm glad that Major Martingale made prisoners of us." And then she remembered what had happened the last day she had been a prisoner, and she flushed and stammered. "At least I was glad." She looked at Richard to see if he remembered the secret that they shared, and he nodded and smiled. Rebecca Mary did not like to think of that last night. It made her hot all over, from the top of her head to her very heels, to remember what she had done. She hoped that no one but Richard would ever know.
"We're going home, we're going home," sang Joan to an air of her own composition. "I'm the only one who has what we came for," she announcedjubilantly. "I came for my father and I found him right away. But you haven't your young heart, have you, Granny? And dear Miss Wyman hasn't found the payment for her insurance, have you, Miss Wyman?" How disappointed Granny and Rebecca Mary must be!
"Perhaps I didn't find the real young heart I wanted, Joan, but then I knew that an old body isn't just the place for a real young heart," Granny confessed honestly. "But my old heart is a lot younger than it was. It makes an old heart young in just the right way to match an old body to be with young people, you know." She gave the prescription gravely to Joan, and Joan received it as gravely.
"That makes two of us who have what we came for." Joan was even more jubilant. "I'm sorry you haven't, Miss Wyman." Miss Wyman couldn't know how sorry she was.
But Rebecca Mary didn't want sympathy from any one, and she said so at once. "Indeed I did make a payment on my memory insurance policy, Joan. I made a lot of payments. Why, at the rate I've been paying I shan't be able to collect all the payments on that memory insurance policy, not if I live to be a hundred!"
Joan bounced up and down on the seat beside Granny. "Then it's time to go home," she said with funny solemnity. "When you get what you want it is always time to go home."
They stopped at a farmhouse to telephone to Pierson to have breakfast ready for them, and when they reached the house a most delicious breakfast was waiting in the dining room.
"I'm glad you're back, Mrs. Simmons," Pierson said. "Young Mrs. Simmons and I don't agree about the arrangements for your golden wedding."
"Don't you, Pierson?" smiled Granny. "I wonder if you and I will agree about them. If we don't you must remember that the golden wedding is mine. Gracious, but I am glad to be home again where I can look after things myself! I declare, Rebecca Mary, I can't think now why we ever went away. I must have been in a panic."
"Mr. Simmons came about fifteen minutes after you left, ma'am," explained Pierson, who stood beside Granny, eager to tell her what had happened. "He was quite put out, I can tell you, when I told him you had gone on a motor trip. He wanted to know where——"
"You couldn't tell him that, could you, Pierson?" Granny seemed quite pleased to think that Piersoncouldn't. "You didn't know where we were. We haven't been near Seven Pines."
"No, ma'am, I know. Mrs. Swenson called me up to ask where you were. But when Mr. Simmons asked me the way he did he got me all flustered and before I knew it I told him you had gone to the Cabot country place. You often go there, you know, Mrs. Simmons, so it wasn't strange I told him you were probably at Riverside."
Granny put down her knife and fork and stared at her. "You never told him that, Pierson?" She hid her face in her napkin, and her shoulders shook. "What did he say? What did Mr. Simmons say, Pierson?"
"He didn't say anything for a minute, ma'am, and then he laughed in a funny sort of a way. 'At Riverside?' he said, ma'am. 'Well, I'll be darned! The devil she is!' That's exactly what he said. But you often go there as Mr. Simmons knows, and yet he seemed surprised as anything to hear you might have gone there now. But I had to tell him something, Mrs. Simmons, when he asked me like he did."
Granny was laughing so that she almost choked. "Pierson," she said when she could control her voice, "I shall raise your wages. I never suspectedthat you had an imagination. No wonder Mr. Simmons wasn't surprised to find us at Riverside. I dare say Major Martingale told him, too, and young Peter, in spite of their promise to me. Dear, dear! Mr. Simmons always seems to get the best of me." She shook her head ruefully. "I wonder what he said when he found that we had run away from Riverside."
"He probably said 'Well, I'll be darned' again," laughed Richard as he repeated a phrase which was often on old Peter Simmons' lips when he was surprised. "You mustn't be too hard on him, Granny. You know this experiment is frightfully important and—you know him," he finished rather lamely.
"I do," nodded Granny. "If I didn't know him I should never have done a lot of things that I have. You must put off fireworks to make old Peter Simmons see anything besides his business. If men weren't so queer women wouldn't have to be so peculiar," she sighed. "You might remind old Peter Simmons that he was married at noon. It would be just like him to come in at night," she prophesied gloomily.
"Mr. Simmons won't be late," Richard promised somewhat rashly. "I'll see myself that he is here by noon."
"You always were a good dependable boy. I can trust you. It is a great thing, Rebecca Mary, to have a man about whom you can trust." There was something so significant in the way she spoke that Rebecca Mary turned pink until she matched the sweet peas in the center of the table.
She looked so pretty in her self-conscious confusion that Richard had to stop eating omelet and muffins and look at her.
Granny went to telephone to young Mrs. Simmons about the golden wedding, and Joan ran after Pierson to tell her all that they had found at Riverside. Rebecca Mary pushed back her chair and rose, too. She just couldn't sit there and let Richard stare at her as he was doing. It made her feel—she could scarcely tell you how it did make her feel when she remembered the way Richard had comforted her the night before. She could still feel the pressure of his arm about her when he had told her that she was a goose. She slipped out on the porch where Richard found her in the swing beside the rambler rose.
She looked up with a smile. "It doesn't seem as if it could be true that we are free again. I think it was wonderful the way you got us out of Riverside."
He smiled, too. "Can you keep a secret?" he asked impulsively.
"I can!" She turned a curious face toward him. "I'm a perfect wonder at keeping secrets. I love 'em so I just can't give them away. Do tell me one!"
"I hate to be told how wonderful I am when I haven't been wonderful at all," he said honestly. "So I'll confess that Mr. Simmons asked me to bring you and Granny and Joan home."
"He did?" Rebecca Mary couldn't believe it. She visualized the caution with which Granny had slipped from bush to bush, how stealthily she had crept to the gate. And there had been no need of caution. How old Peter Simmons could tease Granny now! By running away from his teasing she had only given him more material with which to tease her. "She'll be furious," she said, not sure but she was a little furious herself.
"She must never know." Richard reminded her that what he had given her was a secret. "Mr. Simmons said if Granny could slip out of Riverside and get home before he did she would think she was getting the better of him and be a lot happier."
"The dear old man," breathed Rebecca Mary,forming a new opinion of old Peter Simmons instantly. "What next?"
"And he asked me to bring her to Waloo. That's all, but you see you can't pin any cross on me. I was just obeying orders. I thought you would enjoy the joke, but we won't tell Granny. Let her think that she did get ahead of Mr. Simmons."
"I should say so. That dear old Peter Simmons to let Granny retreat with honor! He's not such a bad sort if he does forget his anniversaries and presents and things. Dear me, how long ago it seems since we ran away from here! Otillie Swenson must be an old married woman by now."
"I don't suppose you thought of me once while you were at Riverside," Richard said jealously.
"Well," a perverse imp appeared in Rebecca Mary's cheek just above the corner of her lip, and there was a perverse imp in her voice, also, "I was rather busy you know. I was the only girl there and four, no, five, men, for old Major Martingale had to have a word now and then, five men in the hand didn't leave much time for one in——"
"The heart," suggested Richard quickly and eagerly, and he dropped into the swing beside her. "If you tell me you kept me in your heart, RebeccaMary, I shan't mind how many men there were in your hand?"
But Rebecca Mary wouldn't tell him that although the question sent her into the strangest flutter she had ever been in in her life, and Richard frowned. He remembered how the men at Riverside had hung about Rebecca Mary.
"You girls are all alike," he said bitterly, and he jumped up from the swing. "I thought that day at the Waloo you would be different——"
"At the Waloo!" interrupted Rebecca Mary. "I should say I was different that day! Why, nothing had ever happened to me then; every day was just like every other day, gray and stupid, but now——" she stopped, appalled at all that had happened since that day at the Waloo, at the few gray stupid days there had been and the many many rosy interesting ones. "Just suppose Cousin Susan had bought kitchen curtains!" she exclaimed with what Richard considered irritating irrelevance.
"Never mind about curtains." Richard wasn't interested in anything connected with the kitchen just then. "They aren't important——"
"Oh, but they were! Frightfully important. Why, there was a moment when my whole future was wrapped up in ten yards of cheap swiss?" Shelooked almost frightened as she thought of her future in a neat parcel with ten yards of cheap swiss. "You know I was a very selfish self-centered disagreeable person,—yes, I was!—before I went to the Waloo with Cousin Susan that day. But there must have been magic in the tea or—or in the favors," she laughed tremulously as she remembered the favor she had received. "I haven't been the same since," she confessed in a way which told him that she was very glad that she hadn't been the same.
"If you would only be the same for two minutes in succession," begged Richard helplessly. He never felt helpless before a man at the bank, no matter who he was, but he felt absolutely helpless as he stood before Rebecca Mary and looked into her rosy face. There was so much he wanted to tell her, and yet he didn't seem able to form an intelligent sentence. He could only stand there like a silly fool and look at the rosy face in which two gray eyes sparkled so adorably. His own face reddened, and his heart seemed to miss a beat.
"Better change your mind and stay for luncheon, Richard." Granny came out with a cordial invitation. "My, Rebecca Mary, but it does seem good to be at home again!" And she said, as she hadsaid so many times in the past few days; "I don't understand now why I ever ran away. But if you won't stay, Richard, you must be sure and tell Mr. Simmons that he should be here by twelve o'clock at the latest. If he isn't here—if he isn't here——" she stopped aghast at the possibility she had voiced. "If he isn't here I don't know what I shall do," she finished truthfully if weakly.
Granny had no opportunity to know what would happen if old Peter Simmons was late for his golden wedding for he came striding in long before the clock struck twelve on the twenty-second of July. Young Mrs. Simmons with Mrs. Hiram Bingham and Mrs. Joshua Cabot were assisting the maids in the pleasant task of arranging the quantities of yellow and white flowers which came pouring in.
Rebecca Mary in a pretty pink gingham, lent a hand wherever she could, but she really wasn't of very much help for her thoughts would stray to Richard and to Count Ernach de Befort. She couldn't keep them on the yellow and white flowers, and every time her thoughts strayed the color in her cheeks grew pinker than the color in her frock. She was, oh, so ashamed and mortified when she remembered that she had locked Count Ernach de Befort in Major Martingale's office and she told herself that she hated Richard Cabot when she remembered thathe had found her clinging to the door. She should have been grateful to Richard, but she insisted that she wasn't, not a bit. Richard had diagnosed her case as that of a goose, a dear little goose, but she did not agree with him at all. She told herself that she had been a fool, a perfectly idiotic fool. And she told herself, also, that she hoped she would never see either Richard or Frederick Befort again for she wanted to forget what a perfectly idiotic fool she had been. She wanted to see young Peter and Wallie and Ben. The line of her lips softened when she thought of them. What fun they had had at Riverside! She wondered if they had thought of her at all or if they had been too busy with the great experiment to think of any girl. With her thoughts roving from Waloo to Riverside it was no wonder that Rebecca Mary was not of more assistance and that she put the white flowers where Judy Bingham had planned to place the yellow flowers.
When old Peter Simmons came striding in like a conqueror, Granny was just coming down the stairs, and she looked more like an old saint in her white linen house gown than she did like a woman who had ever run away from her husband's question.