OUT OF THE NET
Sheer terror at her awful position froze Virginie to an immovable statue
for a moment. It seemed almost unbelievable, like the situation in some
terrible dream. Could it actually be true? She knew not what to say,
what to think, what to do. Her brain absolutely refused to work, her
body to move.
It was Melanie herself who broke the spell. "What are you doing here?"
she whispered. The sound of her voice released Virginie from the
nightmare of immovable terror. A sudden determination was born in her, a
wild impulse to throw herself entirely on the mercy of this strange,
silent woman whose sympathy she had sometimes felt, though it had never
been expressed. It was, she also realized, her only course now.
"Oh, Melanie! I can stand it all no longer! I am going to go away. I am
going with friends who will love me and be kind to me. And to show my
gratitude to them for taking me away from this terrible place, I am
going to restore to them what _she_ has stolen—this! It is all I can do.
Help me, Melanie! I think you—care for me a little, do you not? I have
always thought so. Do not drag me back again into this horrible life!"
She crept over and clasped both arms about the woman's neck.
Melanie caught her breath in surprise. The contact of the girl's
clinging body and the clasp of her soft young arms seemed to have a
curious effect on the stern, repressed woman. Tears started to her eyes
and her breath came in little gasps. She raised her arms and for an
instant it seemed as if she were about to push the girl away. Then, to
Virginie's surprise, she suddenly clasped her in a convulsive embrace.
"My little heart! The only baby I ever had to love!" she murmured
brokenly.
Virginie was quick to seize her advantage. "Oh, Melanie, help me to get
away from this terrible house. I can endure it no longer. I have
suffered too much. _You_ know what I have suffered. And now, at last, I
have the opportunity to get away from it all. Do not prevent it, dear
Melanie. Do not tell _her_! And I will love you always. Will you do this
one thing for me?"
The woman hesitated for a long, tense moment. Then she shrugged her
shoulders and pushed the clinging girl a little way from her.
"I owe much to—_her_—everything practically," she said. "My existence
almost, and the lives of my family. My mother and my little sisters
would have died of starvation had it not been for her. She saved us all,
but she has made me pay a terrible price. She owns me, body and soul. I
have done despicable things for her—because I had to. But one thing has
been harder for me than all the rest—her treatment of you, my little
Virginie, in these last four terrible years. I have loved you always,
from a baby, when you were left motherless. I have felt all that she has
made you suffer. Yet what could I do? I was helpless.
"But now you wish to escape, to get away from it all. Well, you shall.
It will perhaps help to ease my conscience that I have done at least one
good deed. I will leave the way clear. You shall take the paper if you
wish—and go. I only pray you may be happy at last. Madame shall never
know how you got away. But wait just one moment. There is something I
wish to give you before you go. Stay where you are and I will be back
immediately."
Virginie, only too grateful for the turn affairs had taken, consented to
remain where she was till Melanie came back, and the woman hurried away
in the direction of the kitchen. But Melanie was gone what seemed a very
long time. The girl began to grow impatient and even alarmed at the
delay. What if Madame should take a notion to call her now? What could
Melanie be about?
And even as this passed through her mind, the languid voice of Madame
floated down the stairs, calling to her to come up and read aloud and
fan her till she got to sleep. In an agony of anxiety, Virginie stood,
reluctant to answer, yet scarcely daring not to, till at length Melanie
came hurrying back.
"Here it is," she whispered, and crushed a scrap of paper into
Virginie's hand. "Now go!" she ended, pointing to the door. "I will tell
her that you are not in the house. Have no fear and—good-by!"
They clasped each other in a last embrace. Then Virginie, the precious
Crimson Patch clutched to her heart, slipped silently out of the door
that Melanie held open and fled away across the lawn. And ere the door
was closed, she had reached the edge of the woods and flung herself into
the arms Patricia held out to her.
It was a mad ride back to the city, a ride in which they broke the
speed-limit many times and slowed down to normal pace as the outskirts
of the town appeared. Virginie sat with Patricia on the rear seat. So
exhausted nervously was she, that she could say almost nothing, and only
lay back with her eyes closed and her hand clasped in Patricia's. And
Patricia was sensible enough not to urge her to talk, though she was
burning with curiosity to know how the girl had made her escape with the
Crimson Patch. The precious sketch now lay securely hidden, and she
longed for the moment when she could restore it to her father.
And the thought of her father brought her suddenly face to face with the
problem of what they were going to do when they got back to town again.
She shrank from the idea of returning to the hotel with the
half-fainting Belgian girl. It would arouse comment. Beside that, if her
father or Mrs. Quale were not there, it might be a dangerous place for
them to stay alone. Who could tell but what Madame might trace them
there and demand the immediate return of the girl who was supposed to be
in her care? What, indeed, were they to do?
She leaned forward and confided her doubts to Chet. And again she was
astonished at the foresight of this clever boy.
"You bet I worked that all out some little time ago. It sure wouldn't be
healthy for you to go back there—at least not till your father gets
back. But I got a scheme that'll work all right—that is, if you care to
do it. You come right to our place and stay with my mother. I told her
this morning she might have some company before night, so she's half
expectin' you. I'll go back an' hang around the hotel, an' the minute
your father or Mrs. Quale comes along, I'll tip 'em off to the lay of
the land an' fetch 'em right over. How about it?"
"Oh, Chester, you're wonderful!" sighed Patricia. "You certainly do
think of everything. I never saw any one like you."
"Don't take much brain to think of _that_!" protested Chet, modestly.
"There sure is a chance that that bunch will try to trace the girl an'
get her back, an' they'd probably guess right away that she's swiped the
paper an' gone back to you. But, on the other hand, they may be scared
stiff for fear she's given the game away, an' are tumblin' all over
themselves tryin' to get out of sight before the Government gets on to
'em. However, we ain't takin' any chances."
Chet Jackson's home was in an unpretentious side street, a neat little
box of a house, and as the car drew up at the curb, a large,
comfortable, motherly woman, with a wide smile extremely like that of
her youngest son's, appeared at the door. Patricia had been rather
dreading the explanations and apologies that she realized must surely be
in order on their arrival. So weary and overwrought was she, that she
felt almost unequal to undertaking them. But much to her amazed relief,
none seemed to be required. Mrs. Jackson acted as if a fugitive party of
this nature was an every-day occurrence and needed no comment.
"Come right in, ladies!" she welcomed them, when Chet had made the
introductions. "You look very tired. I'm going to put you right in this
room by yourselves, and you can rest as long as you wish till some one
comes for you." And she led them into a neat, ugly little bedroom and
left them to themselves.
Patricia made Virginie lie down on the bed, while she established
herself in a comfortable old rocker near by. Delia, having assured
herself that her young charges were in good hands, departed for the
hotel to be there when Mrs. Quale returned. For half an hour the two
girls remained as she had left them, each too much overcome to utter a
single word.
So quiet was Virginie at last, that Patricia thought she must surely
have fallen asleep, till she noticed two tears stealing down her cheeks.
"Why, darling, what is the trouble?" she questioned, laying her head
down beside her.
"My father!" sobbed Virginie. "Do you think I have—have killed him?"
To divert her mind from this distressing subject, Patricia begged her to
tell how she had managed to make her escape, and, in the recital, the
Belgian girl forgot her fears for a while.
"But what was it that Melanie gave you?" questioned Patricia, and
Virginie opened her hand and disclosed the crumpled scrap of paper that
she had held clenched in it all this time. So absorbed had she been in
other things that she had not till this moment noticed or thought of it.
Together they smoothed it out and bent to read the sentences hastily
scrawled on it in lead-pencil.
There is something I must tell you [it read in French] and I am
cowardly enough not to wish to say it before your face, but I cannot
let you go away forever without knowing it. Would I had told you
before, but I did not dare. You have been kept in this bondage by
the threat that your father would pay with his life if you dared to
disobey them.
Have no fear. The threat is powerless. Your father died during the
siege of Antwerp—a painless death. A shell struck and exploded near
his villa, damaging it. He was not injured, apparently, at the time,
but the shock evidently affected his heart, for he was found soon
afterward lying peacefully in his chair—dead. You should rejoice
that this is so, for he is happy and at peace, and he never could
have been so again had he remained alive. May God have some
happiness in store for you in the future.
Good-by for the last time,
MELANIE.
Virginie uttered one sobbing, astonished cry and buried her face in the
pillow. Patricia, without a word, walked away to the window and left her
alone to the sacredness of her sorrow. But as she stood with clenched
hands, staring out at nothing, she found herself murmuring over and over
again:
"Oh, they are not human! They are not human!"