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Whether O'Reilly has them or someone else, I can't get them back. Without them, I'm ruined!" "You shan't be!" Clo cried, twining her thin arms round her idol's waist. "You must be saved somehow. We've got till ten o'clock to think." "If I were the only one, it wouldn't matter so much," Beverley said. "But there's somebody who can be tortured as well as killed, if I have no bribe to offer.
Now I'll rush. In five minutes I hope to be with you again. Oh, if only Sister Lake isn't at the window!" The five minutes passed, and Beverley didn't return. Clo watched the silver-gilt clock under the vase of violets. Ten minutes; fifteen minutes; no Mrs. Sands! The girl was wondering whether she ought to wait indefinitely, or seek her friend to see what had happened when Beverley appeared.
While he stood at one of the windows, looking gloomily out on the autumn landscape, he heard the voices of 'Dolf and his spinster inamorata in the area below. "What's marster gwine to have done to de tree?" Clo asked. "He's afeared it's deceasin'," replied Dolf, pompously, "and he wishes to perwent." "Don't come none o' yer furrin lingo over me," said Clorinda, angrily.
Then, suddenly, she remembered Justin O'Reilly. A great desolation of loneliness swept over her. He would be sorry. But he was far away. When Clo telephoned, Ellen Blackburne did not even know that the Sands were out of New York. The message, however, instantly awoke her sleeping interest.
He said I would be heart-sick and shame-faced in twelve hours, and turn tail and come back to Gloucestershire like a whipt dog but I shall not, I swear, but shall be merrier and in better heart than I have been since I was young. It gets dull in the country, Clo," shaking his head, "when a man gets old and heavy, and 'tis worst when he has no children left to keep him stirring.
Drawn up at the pavement was the glittering blue automobile, with the statuesque Robbins at the wheel. Clo remembered both, with a queer, sick pang. She had not been wholly unconscious when the stretcher was pushed into the car. "What I owe this darling woman!" was the thought she breathed like a prayer.
That night seemed a favorable occasion for the expedition, as a store of fruit pies, blanc mange and chicken salad, had that day been moulded by Clo's own expert hands, and half a jelly cake set aside in the closet ready for the basket which took so many mysterious journeys in Mrs. Hopkins' direction. "I nebber sends back pieces to de table," said Clo; "it's wulgar."
"I don't mind seven dollars," said Clo, and followed her hostess up flight after flight of dimly lighted stairs. They were covered with oilcloth, and the hall smelled of escaping gas, but the girl was almost happy. The place was not attractive, but it seemed decent enough. "It's a hall room, but a front one," explained Mrs. MacMahon, panting, as they reached the top of the house.
The good soul was much distressed at the small quantity of what she had provided, for which room was found in the lunch-basket, and said she "'lowed dem ar chillun's gwine hungry heap o' times befo' dey sets eyes on ole Clo agin." It had been arranged that Mr. and Mrs. Elmer and Frank March should go with the travellers as far as Tallahassee, and see them fairly off from there.
"Yes, they are like him," she answered, gravely. "The two thou show'dst me playing 'neath the trees?" said Eldershawe. "Ay, they are like enough." "And but for her Grace would have been brought up a hang-dog thief and a poor drab, with all their beauty," went on Sir Christopher. "Ecod, thou hast done well, Clo, the task 'twas thy whim to take upon thyself."
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