PROPHECIES
Lorna appeared in the lighthouse kitchen with red eyelids and the
bruised look about her eyes that usually advertises the lack of sleep in
the case of all dark-eyed people. But she smiled and thanked Miss Heppy
and Tobias briskly for their kindness.
"I am sure I do not know what I should have done if you had not taken me
in. Did the storm do much damage in your best chamber, Miss Heppy?"
"I ain't had time to see, child," replied the spinster. "Tobias will
have to get a new winder frame, I cal'late. You got it boarded up
tight, Tobias?"
"Tight's the word," her brother assured her.
"I hope nothing has happened to our house on Clay Head," Lorna said.
"Not likely. Them storm shutters and doors Miss Ida insisted on putting
on are a good thing, I allow," the lightkeeper observed.
"We'd ought to have outside blinds to our lower windows," his sister
complained. "But the Government don't think so."
"Now, don't let's get onto politics," said Tobias, his eyes twinkling.
"Ye know, Lorny, Heppy and me votes dif'rent tickets, and jest at
present she's ag'in the Government."
"Oh, you hush!" said Miss Heppy, as Lorna's laugh chimed in unison with
Tobias's mellow chuckle.
"Is it going to clear, Mr. Bassett?" the girl asked.
"I guess likely. Ain't been but one storm so fur that didn't clear.
And that's this one. But I give it as my opinion that it was a bad
night. Bad," he added, cocking an eye at Lorna, "for anybody who had to
be out in it."
"Now, Tobias!" ejaculated his sister.
"Them on shipboard, I mean, o' course," the lightkeeper hastened to say.
Lorna ignored this byplay. She would not reveal in any case that she
had felt anxiety for Ralph. She would only show interest in the
condition of the Nicholet house on the bluff, and after breakfast she
bundled up against the cutting gale that still blew, and ventured to
journey cross-lots to the summer residences.
The road, as Lorna had supposed, was badly washed by the rain where it
was not drifted with mushy snow. She wore Miss Heppy's overshoes and
waded ankle deep in slush as she crossed the barrens toward the steep
ascent of the Clay Head. At the foot of this bluff she struck into the
patrol-path--that well-defined trail made by the surfmen who patrol
every yard of the outer Cape Cod coast, from the Big End at the tip near
Provincetown, down to Monomoy Point south of Chatham.
It was slippery under foot, and the wind was still strong. The clouds
were breaking, however, and Lorna could see clear across the
wide-mouthed bay. She observed a gleam of light reflected from the
cupola of the life-saving station at Upper Trillion. A steam tug towing
a brick barge, that had run into Clinkerport ahead of the storm, was now
breasting the after-swell, putting out to sea.
The Nicholet house was the first in the row of summer houses which
overhung the beach toward Clinkerport. Lorna was sheltered from the
wind when she approached the side door to which she had the key.
As she mounted the steps she noted with surprise that one of the cellar
windows right at hand was uncovered. The plank shutter lay upon the
snow, and there were marks about the window that might have been made by
somebody entering the house.
"And such a night as last night was," murmured the amazed girl. "I can
scarcely believe there was a thief here."
Indeed, marauders of any character were seldom a menace upon the Cape.
The summer people who occupied the houses along Clay Head merely locked
their doors in winter and left them until the next season without fear
of trespassers.
Lorna slowly fitted the key in the lock and opened the door. She
entered softly. Could it be possible that an intruder was now in the
house?
At the left of this side entry was a small sitting-room. When the outer
door was closed she distinctly felt a warm current of air from between
the draperies that had been left hanging in the sitting-room doorway.
Amazed, she stepped hurriedly forward and held aside the curtain to look
in. There was a smouldering fire in the grate. Lying outstretched upon
the floor, with a rug wrapped about him, was a man. He was asleep, and
for the moment Lorna could not see his face, nor did she imagine who he
could be.
She tiptoed around the table, and then she saw the sleeper's flaxen
head. Suddenly he started, rolled over, and sat up. He opened
sleep-clouded eyes.
"Is--is that you, Lorna?" he yawned.
The girl's face flamed and her eyes fairly sparked with wrath. She made
a futile gesture with both hands as she backed away from Ralph Endicott.
"Oh, you--you----"
She could not articulate her disgust. Of all the perfectly useless
fellows she had ever heard of, Ralph took the palm!
Without uttering another word the girl left the room and the house.
Ralph had managed to spoil everything, after all. He had not gone to
Clinkerport and telephoned to Harbor Bar. The tongue of scandal would
not be stilled as she had hoped it might. And Lorna Nicholet considered
it quite scandalous for her friends to believe that she and Ralph
Endicott were "as good as engaged."
"I'll never forgive him! I'll never forgive him!" she cried over and
over, as she tramped back to the light.
She made no comment then to either Miss Heppy or Tobias about what she
had found at the house. She did not even notice the old lightkeeper's
sly glances. He had followed Ralph's footprints by lantern-light in the
storm the night before and knew where the young man had taken shelter
after being driven from the lighthouse by Lorna's sharp tongue.
Endicott did not appear that day at the Twin Rocks Light. But he must
have gone on to Clinkerport after Lorna's unexpected visit to the house
on Clay Head aroused him, for the next day--the shell road having become
passable again for motor cars--he came out with a truck from the garage
to tow his roadster into town.
"You can go back with the garage man and me, and I will hire a car to
take you home to Harbor Bar to-night," Endicott said sullenly enough, to
Lorna.
"I will go to Clinkerport with the garage man," the girl promptly
rejoined. "But you need not bother about me after I arrive there. I
can manage to get home by myself. The trains are running."
"Well, I telephoned your Aunt Ida I would bring you home," he said
gloomily. "They--they were some stirred up about us."
"They need be stirred up no further about us. I tell you I have got
through with you, Ralph Endicott--for good and all! I will not be
forced by my family to endure your company."
"It's fifty-fifty," he rejoined. "You don't have to ride any high horse
about it. I'm no more pleased with the prospect of catering to your
whims, I assure you."
"You are no gentleman!" she declared, her little fists clenched.
"At least, I am telling you the truth, Lorna," he said grimly. "Perhaps
being a gentleman precludes one's being candid."
"Oh--you!" she ejaculated again and turned her back on him.
Tobias watched them depart with puckered face. Separately the young folk
had shaken hands with the lightkeeper and his sister, and thanked them
warmly for their hospitality. But when the two cars started Lorna sat
up stiffly, "eyes front," beside the garage man and would not look back
for fear of seeing Ralph Endicott in the rear car.
"Just as friendly to each other as a couple o' strange dogs," observed
Tobias. "She's on her ear, sure enough. And Ralphie is just as stuffy
as they make 'em. What do you reckon will come of it, Heppy?"
"I know one thing, Tobias, and that ain't two," declared his sister
flatly. "None o' your interference is goin' to help matters. Don't you
think it."
"Wal--now--I dunno. If I can help a likely couple like Lorna and Ralph
to an understanding----"
"Huh! Matches are made in heaven," said his sister.
"Oh, sugar! They don't often smell so when you light 'em," chuckled
Tobias.
"Oh, you hush!"
"I'm thinkin' serious, Heppy, of helping them two foolish young ones to
an understanding."
"You'd better mind your own business, Tobias Bassett."
"Ain't it my business?" he queried, his head cocked on one side watching
the disappearing motor cars. "You know the Bible says we should all
turn to an' help get our neighbor's ass out o' the pit----"
"An' you'll be the biggest jack of all if you interfere in the affairs
of them young ones."
"I dunno----"
"You'd better know!" exclaimed Miss Heppy, exasperated. "For love's
sake! who ever told you, Tobias Bassett, that you knowed enough to
venture where even angels fear to tread?"
"Oh! Hum! Then I guess you don't cal'late after all that matches is
made in heaven," he chuckled. "And I give it as my opinion, Heppy, that
marrying and giving in marriage ain't never been angels' jobs. Mebbe a
mere human being like me might have more of a sleight at matchmaking
than the heavenly host--if anybody should drive up an' ax ye."