IN THE ADIRONDACKS
To the wild, out-of-the-world hunting lodge in the Adirondack
wilderness of tree and lake and trout-haunted mountain stream which had
been part of Norman Westfall's heritage, came, one twilight of cloud
and wind, Diane, tanned with the wind and sun of a year's
wandering--and very tired.
Wild relief at Carl's tale of the jealous Indian, thoughts of Philip,
of Carl, of Keela, of Ronador, all these, persistently haunting the
girl's harassed mind, had wearied her greatly. Moreover, Aunt Agatha
was not restful; nor would she depart.
Wherefore, with the old habit when the voice of the forest called--when
school and city and travel had palled and tortured--Diane had traveled
feverishly north with Aunt Agatha, and thence to the Adirondack lodge
which had been her hermitage since early childhood and to which, by an
earlier compact, Aunt Agatha might not follow.
She had telegraphed old Roger to meet her with the buckboard. Now, as
they drove up at twilight, Annie, his wife, stood in the cottage
doorway. Beyond among the rustling trees stood the log lodge of Norman
Westfall, far enough away for solitude and near enough, as Aunt Agatha
frequently recalled with comfort, to the cottage of the two old
servants for safety.
The lake stretched away to a dusk-dimmed shore set in a whispering line
of ghostly birches.
"There's wood in the fireplace, dearie!" said old Annie, patting the
girl's shoulder. "It's a wee bit chill yet, for all the summer ought
well be here. And you've not run away to the old lodge to cook and
keep house and play gypsy this many a day!"
"No," said Diane, "I haven't." She spoke of the van and Johnny.
"Dear! Dear!" quavered Annie, raising wrinkled, wondering hands.
"Think of that now! And like you, too! And you grown so like your
father, child, that I can't well keep my eyes off your face. And brown
as a berry from the sun. I've set a bit of a lunch in the great room
yonder, dearie. You'll likely be too tired to-night to be a gypsy."
Old Roger, who had consigned the buckboard and horses to a tall awkward
country lad who had slouched forward from the shadows, hurried off to
light the fire in the lodge.
When Diane entered, the fire was crackling cheerfully in the great
fireplace and dancing in bright waves over the china and glass upon a
table by the fire.
The old room, extending the entire width of the lodge and half its
generous depth, was much as it had been in the days of Norman Westfall.
By the western wall stood the old piano. Uncovered rafters and an
inner wall-lining of logs hinted nothing of the substantial plaster
behind it. It was a great room of homely comfort, subtly akin to the
forest beyond its walls.
It was the old fashioned desk in the corner, however, upon which
Diane's thoughtful gaze rested as she ate her supper. The thought of
it had primarily inspired her coming. Surely the old desk, locked this
many a year, might hold some breath of the tragedy that had ghostlike
trailed her footsteps. Ann Westfall had kept the key until her death.
She had bravely put her brother's house in order at his tragic death
and transferred all the papers of value. The key hung now in a sliding
panel beneath the ledge of the desk. The spirit which had kept the old
room unchanged, even to the faded books of Orientalism and the old
pictures strangely mellowed, had led to the hiding of the key away from
vandal fingers.
Once Diane herself had unlocked the desk and peered timidly within.
She remembered now the faultless order of the few dry, uninteresting
papers, an ink well made of the skull of a tiny monkey, a bamboo pen, a
half-finished manuscript of wild adventure in some out-of-the-world
spot in the South Pacific. There had been nothing more. But the desk
was one of intricate drawers and panels.
With a sudden distaste for the food before her, Diane pushed the little
table back, lighted a small lamp and crossed to her father's desk. She
unlocked it with nervous fingers. The monkey skull, the bamboo pen,
the few irrelevant papers were all as she remembered them.
Diane glanced hurriedly over the scribbled manuscript of adventure with
a wild, choking sensation in her throat. There was no mention of the
Indian wife. Hurriedly she opened each tiny drawer and panel. They
were for the most part empty. Only in one, a small drawer within a
drawer, lay a faded packet of letters directed to Ann Westfall in the
hand that had penned the manuscript--Norman Westfall's.