For a second everything swam before her eyes, and it seemed as though
she could not stand up. Maxwell put out his hand in alarm to steady
her.
“Hadn’t you better go into the house?” he asked anxiously. “You look
ill. Do you feel faint?”
“Oh, I’m all right,” she said almost impatiently. “I’m just worried.
Maybe there isn’t anything the matter, but—it looks very—queer. This
must be the note the boy brought.”
She began to read the note, which was written in a clear feminine
hand on fine note paper:
“DEAR CAREY, I came out here to see a Sunday-school scholar who is
sick, and I am in great trouble. Come to me quick! I’m out at Lamb’s
Tavern.
“GRACE.”
“I don’t understand it,” faltered Cornelia, looking up at Maxwell
helplessly. “She—this! It is signed ‘Grace,’ and looks as if Grace
Kendall wrote it. I am sure Carey thought so when he went. But—Grace
Kendall was at home only a few minutes ago. She called me up to ask
me to bring some music she had left here when I come to church. How
could she have got out there so soon?”
Maxwell took the note, and read it with a glance, then turned the
paper over, and felt its thickness.
“Curious they should have such stationery at Lamb’s Tavern. Who
brought it?”
“A boy. I’m not sure. He looked as if I had seen him before. He might
have, been—” she hesitated, and the color stole into her cheeks. The
trouble was deep in her eyes. “He might have been a boy who came here
on an errand once; I wasn’t certain. I only saw him from the window.”
“You knew him?”
“Why—I had just a suspicion that he might have been that Dodd girl’s
brother.” She lifted pained eyes to meet his.
“I see,” he said, his tone kindling with sympathy. “Has she
any—ah—_further_ reason for revenge than what I know?”
“Yes,” owned Cornelia. “She sent word to Carey to call her up, and
he didn’t do it. She had invited him to go on an automobile ride. He
didn’t go, and we were all away when they must have stopped for him.”
“I see. Will you call up Miss Kendall on some pretext or other, and
find out if she is at her home? Quickly, please.” His tone was grave
and kindly, but wholly businesslike and Cornelia, feeling that she
had found a strong helper, sped into the house on her trembling feet,
giving thanks that the telephone had just been put in last week.
Maxwell stood beside her as she called the number, silently waiting.
“Hello. Is that you, Grace? Was it ‘Oh, eyes that are weary’ that you
wanted me to bring? Thank you, yes; I thought so, but I wanted to
make sure; good-bye.”
Maxwell had not waited to hear more than that Miss Kendall was at
home. He strode out to his car; and, when Cornelia reached the door,
he had his hand on the starter.
“Oh, you mustn’t go alone!” she called. “Let me go with you.”
“Not this time,” he answered grimly. “You go on to church if I’m not
back.” He had not waited to finish; the car was moving; but a sturdy
flying figure shot out of the door behind Cornelia, over the hedge,
and caught on behind. Harry, with little to go by, had sensed what
was in the air, and meant to be in at the finish. No, of course not;
his adored Maxwell should not go alone to any place where Cornelia
said “No” in that tone. He would go along.
Louise, white-faced and quiet, with little hands clasped at her
throat, stood just behind her sister, watching the car shoot up the
hill and out of sight.
“Sister, you think—it’s _that girl_ again—don’t you?” she asked
softly, looking with awe at the white-faced girl.
“I’m afraid, Louie; I don’t know!” said Cornelia, turning with a
deep, anxious sigh and dropping into a chair.
“Yes, it must be,” said Louise. “And—that was that boy, wasn’t
it?—the same one she sent to say she was coming to the party. My!
That was poor! She wasn’t very bright to do that, Nellie.”
Cornelia did not answer. She had dropped her face into her hands, and
was trembling.
“Nellie, dear!” cried the little sister, kneeling before her and
gathering her sister’s head into her young arms. “You mustn’t feel
that way. God is taking care of us. He helped us before, you know.
And He’s sent Mr. Maxwell. He’s just like an angel, isn’t he? Don’t
you know that verse, ‘My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the
lions’ mouths’. Mother used to read us that story so often when Harry
and I were going to sleep. Let’s just kneel down and pray; and pretty
soon Carey ’ll come back all right, I shouldn’t wonder. I know he
didn’t mean to be away. He promised Grace; and I kind of don’t think
he likes that other girl so awfully any more now, do you?”
“No, I think not; but, dear, I’m afraid this is a trick. I’m afraid
they mean to keep him away to pay him back.”
“Yes, I know,” said the wise little sister. “I read that note. You
dropped it out of your pocket. Grace Kendall never wrote that. It
isn’t her writing. She put her name in my birthday book, and she
doesn’t make her Gs like that. She makes ’em with a long curl to
the handle. They thought they were pretty smart; but Carey and Mr.
Maxwell ’ll beat them to it, I’m sure, for they’ve got our God on
their side. I’m glad Harry went too. Harry’s got a lot of sense; and,
if anything happens, Harry can run back and tell.”
“O darling!” Cornelia clung to the little girl.
“Well, it might—” said the child. “I’m glad father isn’t here. I hope
it’s all over before he gets back. Was he coming back before church?”
Cornelia shook her head.
“He’s going to stay with Mr. Baker while his wife goes to church.”
“Then let’s pray now, Nellie.”
They knelt together beside the big gray chair in the silence of the
twilight, hand in hand, and put up silent petitions; and then they
got up and went to the window.
The city had that gentle, haloed look of a chastened child in the
afterglow of the sunset; and soft violets and purples were twisting
in misty wreaths about the edges of the night. Bells were calling in
the distance. A far-away chime could just be heard in tender waves
that almost obliterated the melody. The Sabbath hush was in the sky,
broken now and again by harsh, rasping voices and laughter as a car
sped by on the way home from some pleasure trip. Something hallowed
seemed to linger above the little house, and all about was a sweet
quiet. The neighbors had for the moment hushed their chatter. Now
and again a far-distant twang of a cheap victrola broke out and died
away, and then the silence would close around them again. The two sat
waiting breathlessly on the pretty front porch that Carey had made,
for Carey to come home. But Carey did not come.
By and by the sound of singing young voices came distinctly to their
ears. It seemed to beat against their hearts and hurt them.
“Nellie, you’ll have to go pretty soon. It’ll be so hard to explain,
you know. And, besides, he might somehow be there. Carey wouldn’t
stop for a hat. I almost think he’s there myself.” Louise sounded
quite grown up.
“Of course, he might,” said Cornelia thoughtfully. “There’s always
a possibility that we have made a great deal more out of this than
the facts merited.” She shuddered. She had just drawn her mind back
from a fearful abyss of possibilities, and it was hard to get into
everyday untragic thought.
“I think we better go, Nellie,” said the little girl rising.
“Christian ’deavor ’ll be most out before we can get there now, and
she’ll think it queer if we don’t come, after she gave us both those
verses to read. You won’t like to tell her you were just sitting here
on the front porch, doing nothing, because you thought Carey had gone
to Lamb’s Tavern after her! I think we’d better go. We prayed, and we
better trust God and go.”
“Perhaps you’re right, dearie,” said Cornelia, rising reluctantly and
giving a wistful glance up the hill into the darkness.
They got ready hurriedly, put the key into its hiding-place, and
went. Cornelia wrote a little note, and as soon as they got there
sent it up with the music to Grace, who was at the piano. It said:
“DEAR GRACE, Carey was called away for a few minutes, and he must
have been detained longer than he expected. Don’t worry; I’m sure he
will do everything in his power to get back in time.”
Grace read the note, nodded brightly to the Copleys at the back of
the room, and seemed not at all concerned. Cornelia, glad of the
shelter of a secluded seat under the gallery, bent her head, and
prayed continually. Little Louise, bright-eyed, with glowing cheeks,
sat alertly up, and watched the door; but no Carey came.
They slipped out into the darkness after the meeting was out, and
walked around the corner where they could see their own house; but
it seemed silent and dark as they had left it, and they turned sadly
back and went into the church.
The choir had gathered when Cornelia got back, and she slipped into
the last vacant seat by the stairs, and was glad that it was almost
hidden from the view of the congregation. It seemed to her that the
anxiety of her heart must be written large across her face.
Louise, still as a mouse all by herself down in a back seat by the
door, watched—and prayed. No one came in at the two big doors that
she did not see. Maxwell and Harry had not come back yet. The cool
evening air came in at the open window, and blew the little feather
in the pretty hat Cornelia had made for her. She felt a strand of
her own hair moving against her cheek. There was honeysuckle outside
somewhere on somebody’s front porch across the street or in the
little park near by. The breath of it was very sweet, but Louise
thought she never as long as she lived, even if that were a great
many years, would smell the breath of honeysuckle without thinking of
this night. And yet the sounds outside were just like the sounds on
any other Sunday night; the music and the lights in the church were
the same; the people looked just as if nothing were the matter, and
Carey had not come! What a queer world it was, everything going on
just the same, even when one family was crushed to earth with fear!
Automobiles flew by the church; now and then one stopped. Louise
wished she were tall so she could look out and see whether they had
come. Her little heart was beating wildly; but there was a serene,
peaceful expression on her face. She had resolved to trust God, and
she knew He was going to do something about it somehow. But people
kept coming in at the door, and hope would dim again.
The service had begun, and in the silence of the opening prayer the
two sisters lifted their hearts in tragic petition. Their spirits
seemed to cling to each word and make it linger; their souls entered
into the song that followed, and sang as if their earnest singing
would hold off the moment for a little longer.
Cornelia was glad that her seat was so placed that she could not see
all the choir. She had given a swift survey as she sat down, and she
knew her brother was not there. Now she sat in heaviness of heart,
and tried to fathom it all!—tried to think what to do next, what to
tell her father, whether to tell her father at all; tried not to
think of the letter she would not write the next day to her mother;
tried just to hold her spirit steady, steady, trusting, not hoping,
but trusting, right through the prayer, the song, the Bible reading.
Now and again a frightful thought of danger shot through her heart,
and a wonder about Maxwell. Lamb’s Tavern—what kind of a place was
it? The very name “Tavern” sounded questionable. And Harry! He ought
not to have gone, of course, but she had not seen him in time to stop
him. Brave, dear Harry! A man already. And yet he knew he ought not
to go! But the man in him had to. She understood.
Suddenly she found a tear stealing slowly down her cheek, and she
sat up very straight, and casually slid a finger up to its source,
and stopped it. This must not happen again. No one must know her
trouble. How wonderful it was that she should have been able to get
this little sheltered spot, the only spot in the whole choir loft
that was absolutely out of sight, by the winding stairs down into the
choir room behind! She would not be seen until she had to stand up
with the rest of the choir to sing; and then she would step in behind
the rest, and be out of sight again. She wondered what Grace would do
about Carey’s solo, and decided that she had probably asked some one
else to take it. She cast a quick glance over the group of tenors,
but she did not know any of them well enough to be sure whether there
was a soloist present. She had been at only two rehearsals so far,
and was not acquainted with them all yet. She was not afraid that the
music would go wrong, for she had great faith that Grace at the organ
would easily be able to fill the vacancy in some way; she only felt
the deep mortification that Carey the first time he had been asked
to sing in this notably conspicuous way had failed her, and for such
a reason! It was terrible, and it was perplexing. It was not like
Carey to be fooled by a note. And didn’t Carey know that little Dodd
boy? If he had been going to the Dodd house at all, wouldn’t he know
the brother? Why didn’t he see through the trick? He was quick as a
flash. He was not dumb and slow like some people.
The contralto solo had begun. It was a sweet and tender thing, with
low, deep tones like a ’cello; but they beat upon the tired girl’s
heart, and threatened to break down her studied composure. A hymn
followed, and the reading of another Bible selection. “All we like
sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and
the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” She felt as if all
the iniquity of her brother Carey were laid upon her heart, and a dim
wonder came to her whether the Lord was bearing a like burden for
her. She had never felt much sense of personal sin herself before.
The thought lingered through the pain, and wound in and out through
her tired brain during the offertory and prayer that followed; and
at last came the anthem. The opening chords were sounding. The choir
was rising. She stumbled to her feet, and for the first time saw
the audience before her, this congregation that was to have heard
Carey sing his tenor solo. It was a goodly audience, for Mr. Kendall
touched the popular heart, and drew people out at night as well as
in the morning; and she felt anew the pang of disappointment. She
glanced swiftly over the lifted faces and saw little Louise, white
and shrinking, sitting by herself, and saw beyond her, at the open
door, two figures just entering, Maxwell and Harry, looking a trifle
white and hurried, and glancing anxiously around the audience. Then
she opened her mouth and tried to sing, to do her little part among
the sopranos in the chorus; but no sound seemed to come. All she
could think of now was, “Carey is not here!” beating over and over
like a refrain in her brain: “Carey has not come! Carey has not
come!”