The car took them to a drowsy little village, and stopped before a small cottage on a side street. Mrs. Enderby got out, followed by Lexy, the living ghost of Caroline. Side by side they went up the flagged path and on to the porch. Mrs. Enderby rang the bell, and in a moment the door was opened by a thin, sandy-haired woman in spectacles.
“Mrs. Enderby!” she cried, her plain face lighting up in a delighted smile. “And my dear little Caroline!” She held out her hand to Lexy, and suddenly her face changed. “But—” she began.
Mrs. Enderby pushed her gently inside and closed the door.
“But it’s not Caroline!” cried Miss Craigie.
“Hush!” said Mrs. Enderby. “I shall explain to you. Please allow the chauffeur to carry upstairs a small trunk, and please have no air of surprise.”
Evidently Miss Craigie was in the habit of obeying Mrs. Enderby. She opened the front door and called the chauffeur, who came in with the trunk.
“Turn your back!” whispered Mrs. Enderby to Lexy. “Go and look out of the window!”
Lexy heard the man go past the sitting room and up the stairs. Presently he came running down, and the front door closed after him.
“Now, Miss Craigie,” said Mrs. Enderby, “if you will permit Miss Moran to go upstairs?”
“Oh, certainly!” answered the bewildered Miss Craigie. “Whatever you think best, Mrs. Enderby, I’m sure.”
“Go!” said Mrs. Enderby.
The lady’s tone aroused in Lexy a great desire not to go. Of course, now that she had gone so far, it would be childish to refuse to continue; but she meant to take her time. She stood there by the window, slowly drawing off her gloves, her back turned to the room. Suddenly Mrs. Enderby caught her by the shoulder and turned her around.
“Go!” she said again. “Take off those things of my child’s. Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Have you no heart?”
There was such a note of anguish in her voice that Lexy no longer delayed. She followed Miss Craigie up the stairs to a neat, prim little bedroom, where the trunk stood, already unlocked.
“If you want anything—” suggested Miss Craigie, in her gentle and apologetic way.
“No, thank you,” replied Lexy.
Miss Craigie went out, closing the door softly behind her. Lexy took off Caroline’s hat and coat and laid them on the bed.
“I wonder if I’ll ever see her wearing them again!” she thought.
For a long time she stood motionless, looking down at the things that Caroline had worn. Most pitifully eloquent, they seemed to her—the hat that had covered Caroline’s fair hair, the coat that had fitted her slender shoulders. Lexy looked and looked, grave and sorrowful—and in that moment her resolution was made.
“I’m going to find her!” she said, half aloud. “I don’t care what any one else does or what any one else thinks. I know she’s in trouble of some sort, and I’m going to find her!”
The last trace of what Lexy had called “mawkish self-pity” had vanished now. She was no longer concerned with Mrs. Enderby’s attitude toward herself. It didn’t matter. Finding another job didn’t matter, either. She had a little money due her, and she meant to use it—every penny of it—in finding Caroline.
She washed her hands and face, brushed her hair, put on her own hat and jacket, and went downstairs again. Mrs. Enderby was standing in the tiny hall, and from the sitting room there came a sound of muffled sobbing.
“She is an imbecile, that woman!” said Mrs. Enderby, with a sigh; “but she will hold her tongue. And you?”
“I’ve got to do as I think best,” answered Lexy. “I’ll say good-by now, Mrs. Enderby.”
“There is no train until three o’clock. It is now after one. We shall have lunch directly.”
“No, thank you,” said Lexy. “I’d rather go now. I dare say I can find something to eat in the village.”
She was not in the least angry now, or hurt; only she wanted to get away, by herself, to think this out.
“Good-by?” repeated Mrs. Enderby, with a smile. “You think, then, never to see me again?”
“No,” said Lexy. “I mean to see you again—when I have something to tell you; but just now I want to go back and pack up my things.”
“And leave my house?”
“Yes.”
They were both silent for a moment. Then, to Lexy’s amazement, Mrs. Enderby laid a hand gently on the girl’s shoulder.
“My child,” she said, “you think I am a very hard woman. Perhaps it is so; but, like you, I do what seems to me the right. Certainly it is better now that you should leave us; but not like this. You must have your lunch here, then you must return to the house and sleep there, all in the usual way. To-morrow you shall go.” She paused a moment. “You shall go, if you are still determined that you will not keep faith with me.”
It was not a very difficult matter to touch Lexy’s heart. Whatever resentment she may have felt against Mrs. Enderby vanished now, lost in a sincere pity and respect; but she was firm in her purpose.
“I’ve got to tell one person,” she said. “If I do, I shall be able to tell you something you ought to know. I wish you could trust me! I wish you could believe that all I’m thinking of is—Caroline!”
“I do believe you,” said Mrs. Enderby. “You are very honest, and very, very young. You wish to do good, but you do harm. Very well, my child—I cannot stop you. Go your way, and I go mine; but”—she paused again, and again smiled her faint, shadowy smile—“if I think it right that you should be sacrificed, it shall be so. I am sorry. I have affection for you. I shall be sorry if you stand in my way.”
Lexy met her eyes steadily.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said.
And so she was. There was nothing in her heart now but sorrow for them all—for Caroline, for Mrs. Enderby, for the luckless Mr. Houseman, even for Miss Craigie; but most of all for Caroline.
“I’ve got to find her,” she thought, over and over again; “and he’ll help me!”
She had lunch in Miss Craigie’s cottage—a melancholy meal, with the hostess red-eyed and dejected and Mrs. Enderby sternly silent. Then, after lunch, poor Miss Craigie was sent out for a drive, in order to get rid of the chauffeur while Lexy slipped out of the house and down to the station.
Everything went as Mrs. Enderby had willed it. Lexy caught the designated train, and returned to the city. All the way in, her great comfort was the thought of Mr. Houseman. He would help her. Now she could tell him that Caroline had gone, and he would help her.
“Of course, I’ve missed him to-day,” she thought; “but he’s sure to be in the park again to-morrow. Perhaps he’ll telephone. He’s not the sort to be easily discouraged, I’m sure.”
It was dark when she reached the Grand Central, but, at the risk of being late for dinner, Lexy chose to walk back to the house. She could always think better when she was walking.
“I want to get the thing in order in my own mind,” she reflected. “Mrs. Enderby is so—confusing. Here’s the case—Mr. Houseman says Caroline promised to meet him last night at a place called Wyngate, and they were to be married. She left the house. This morning there was a letter from her, postmarked Wyngate; but he says she didn’t go there. Well, then, where did she go?”
Impossible to answer that question with even the wildest surmise.
“I’ll have to wait,” Lexy went on. “I’ll have to find out more from Mr. Houseman. Perhaps they misunderstood each other. It’s no use trying to guess. I’ll have to wait till I see him.”
She recalled his honest, sunburned face with great good will. He was her ally. He was young, like herself, not old and cautious and deliberate. She liked him. She trusted him. In her loneliness and anxiety, he seemed a friend.
Annie opened the door with her customary air of disapproval.
“Yes, miss,” she answered. “Mrs. Enderby came home in the car half an hour ago. Dinner’ll be served in ten minutes. Here’s a letter for you. A young man left it about twenty minutes ago.”
“If I’d taken a taxi from Grand Central, I’d have seen him!” was Lexy’s first thought.
Even a letter was something, however, and she ran upstairs with it, very much pleased. Of course, it was from Mr. Houseman. She locked the door, and, standing against it, looked at the envelope. It was addressed to “Miss Lexy” in a good clear hand. That made her smile, remembering her first indignation that morning.
The letter ran thus:
DEAR MISS LEXY:
Please excuse me for addressing you like this, but I don’t know your other name. I forgot to ask you.
I waited in the park for you all afternoon. When it got dark, I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I went to the house and asked for Miss Enderby. The servant told me she had gone away to the country with her mother this morning.
Please tell Miss Enderby that I understand. I am sorry she didn’t tell me before that she had changed her mind, instead of letting me wait like that; but it’s finished now. Please tell her she can count on me to hold my tongue, and never to bother her again in any way.
We are sailing to-night, or I should have tried to see you to-morrow. In case you have any message for me, you can address me at the company’s office, J. J. Eames & Son, 99 State Street. I expect to be back in about six weeks.
Very truly yours,
CHARLES HOUSEMAN.
“Sailing to-night!” cried Lexy. “Then he’s gone! He’s gone!”