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As yet there was no sign visible from his far-horizoned home, except a filmy and changeful wreath of palest cloud with which Mount Carstairs was bedecked. Banneker decided for silence. Miss Van Arsdale was much better when he rode over in the morning, but Io looked piteously worn and tired. "You've had no rest," he accused her, away from the sick woman's hearing.
The two practical journalists left, making an appointment to spend the following morning with Marrineal in planning policy and methods. Banneker went back to his apartment and wrote Miss Camilla Van Arsdale all about it, in exultant mood. "Brains to let! But I've got my price. And I'll get a higher one: the highest, if I can hold out. It's all due to you.
Better to stand shorn and true before her than garbed in such false colors as these. But as before, he realized that her own welfare forbade even this relief. The nurse approached with a cheery smile, but with an unmistakable air of authority. "You will pardon me," she interrupted, "but we must keep Miss Arsdale as quiet as possible. I think she ought to try to sleep a little now."
Camilla Van Arsdale had partly read his dream, and could have wept for it and him. Io Eyre had begun to read it, and her heart went out to him anew. For this was the test of success. It was one of those mornings of coolness after cloying heat when even the crowded, reeking, frowzy metropolis wakes with a breath of freshness in its nostrils.
If you hadn't kept my mind turned to things worth while in the early days at Manzanita, with your music and books and your taste for all that is fine, I'd have fallen into a rut. It's success, the first real taste. I like it. I love it. And I owe it all to you." Camilla Van Arsdale, yearning over the boyish outburst, smiled and sighed and mused and was vaguely afraid, with quasi-maternal fears.
Success would create a horror on both sides the water unprecedented during my career, while failure would bring down ridicule on us which would destroy the prestige of the whole force. Do you see my difficulty, Miss Van Arsdale? We can not even approach this haughty and highly reputable Englishman with questions without calling down on us the wrath of the whole English nation.
Arsdale broke in, "We 'll sue them for it, Donaldson! I 'll get the best legal talent in the country and make them sweat for this! It's an outrage!" "I 'm sorry you saw the paper," he repeated to the girl. Her pale face and startled eyes frightened him. She had withdrawn from his arm after a minute and now fell into a chair. "The blasted idiots," raged the boy.
At first it was intolerable that he should be driven to ask about her from any other person; about Io, who had clasped him in the Valley of the Shadow, whose lips had made the imminence of death seem a light thing! The Hunger drove him to it. Yes; Miss Van Arsdale had heard. Io Welland was in New York, and well. That was all. But Banneker felt an undermining reserve.
"Arrived safe" was the laconic message delivered to Miss Camilla Van Arsdale by Banneker's substitute when, after a haggard night, she rode over in the morning for news. Banneker himself returned on the second noon, after much and roundabout wayfaring. He had little to say of the night journey; nothing of the peril escaped. Miss Welland had caught a morning train for the East.
But Saul only pushed him into the cab and hurried back to his joyous mission. Donaldson ordered the driver to the Waldorf. He must get a clean shave, change his clothes and get back to the Arsdale house before the first editions were out heralding his arrest.
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