She stepped out on the porch for a moment as Captain Prescott was saying
good-night. The moonlight was falling weirdly through the big trees,
stretching itself over the grass in shapes that seemed to spell unearthly
things. And there were mystical lights on the water down there, flitting
about with the movement of the stream as ghosts might flit. Because it
looked so other-world-like she wondered if it knew what it had just
missed. She had never thought anything about water save as something to
look beautiful and have a good time on. It seemed now that perhaps it
knew a great deal about things of which she knew nothing at all.
"Oh, I say, jolly night, isn't it?" he exclaimed as they stood at the
head of the steps.
"Yes," said Kate grimly, "pleasant weather, isn't it?" and laughed oddly.
"It's great about your friend coming; Miss--?"
"Forrest." She spoke it decisively.
"She arrived this afternoon?"
"Yes, unexpectedly. I was never more surprised in my life than when I
looked up and saw Ann standing there." Katie was not too impressed to
resist toying a little with the situation.
"Oh, is that so? I thought--" But he was too well-bred to press it.
"Of course," she hastened to patch together her thread, "of course, as I
told Wayne, I knew that Ann was coming. But I didn't really expect her
until day after to-morrow. You see, there have been complications."
"Oh, I see. Well, at any rate it's great that she's here. She will be
with you for the summer?"
"Ann's plans are a little uncertain," Kate informed him.
"I hope she'll not find it dull. Does she care for golf?"
"U--m, I--Ann has never played much, I believe. You see she has lived so
much in Europe--on the Continent--places where they don't play golf! And
then Ann is not very strong."
"Then this is just the place for her. Great place for loafing, you know.
I hope she is fond of the water?"
Kate was leaning against one of the pillars, still looking down toward
the river. It might have been the moonlight made her look so strange as
she said, with a smile of the same quality as those shadows on the grass:
"Why yes; in fact, Ann's fondness for the water was the first thing I
ever noticed about her. I think I might even say it was the water drew us
together."
"Oh, well then, that is great. We can take the boat and do all sorts of
jolly things. Now I wonder--about a horse for her. She rides?"
"Perhaps you had better make no plans for Ann," she suddenly advised. "It
really would not surprise me at all if she went away to-morrow. There is
a great deal of uncertainty about the whole thing. In fact, Ann has had a
great deal of trouble."
"I'm sorry," he said with a simplicity she liked in him.
"Yes, a great deal of trouble. Last year both her father and mother died,
which was a great blow to her."
"Well, rather!"
"And now there are all sorts of business things to straighten out. It's
really very hard for Ann."
"Perhaps we can help her," he suggested.
"Perhaps we can," agreed Kate. Her eyes left him to wander across the
shadows down to the river again. But she came back to him to say, and
this with the oddest smile of all, "Wouldn't it be a queer sensation for
us? That thing of really 'helping' some one?"
She could not go to sleep that night. For a long time she sat in her room
in the same big chair in which Ann had sat that afternoon. Poor Ann, who
had sat there before she knew she was Ann, who was sleeping now without
knowing she was Ann. For Ann was indeed sleeping. From her door as Kate
carefully opened it had come the deep breathing as of an exhausted child.
Who was Ann? Where had she come from? How did she get there? What had
happened? Why had she wanted to kill herself?
She wanted to know. In truth, she was madly curious to know. And
probably she never would know.
And what would happen now? It suddenly occurred to her that Wayne might
be rather annoyed at having Ann commit suicide. But there was a little
catch in her laugh at the thought of Wayne's consternation.
A long time she sat there wondering. Where _had_ Ann come from? She had
just seemed whirled out of the nowhere into the there, as an unannounced
comet in well-ordered heavens Ann had come. From what other world?--and
why? Did she belong to anybody? Another pleasant prospect for poor
Wayne! Was some one looking for Ann? Would there be things in the paper
about her?
Surely a girl could not step out of her life and leave no trail behind.
Things could not close up like that, even about Ann. Every one had a
place. Then how could one step from that place without leaving a
conspicuous looking vacancy?
Why had Ann been dressed that way? It seemed a strange costume in which
to kill one's self. It seemed to Katie that one would prefer to meet the
unknown in a smaller hat.
She went to the closet and took out the organdie dress and satin
slippers. From whence? and why thither? They opened long paths of
wondering. The dress was bedraggled about the bottom, as though trailed
through fields and over roads. And so strangely crumpled, and so strange
the scent--a scent hauntingly familiar, yet baffling in its relation to
gowns. A poorly made gown, Katie noted, but effective. She tried to read
the story, but could not read beyond the fact that there was a story. The
pink satin slippers had broken heels and were stained and soaked. They
had traveled ground never meant for them. Something about Ann made one
feel she was not the girl to be walking about in satin slippers.
Something had happened. She had been dressed for one thing and then had
done another thing. Could it be that ever since the night before she had
been out of her place in the scheme of things?--loosened from the great
human unit?--seeking destruction, perhaps, because she could not regain
her place therein? "Where have you been?" Katie murmured to the ruined
slippers. "What did it? What do you know? What did you want?"
Many a pair of just such slippers she had danced to the verge of
shabbiness. To her they were associated with hops, the gayest of music
and lightest of laughter, brilliant crowds in flower-scented rooms,
dancing and flirtation--the froth and bubble of life. But something
sterner than waxed floors had wrought the havoc here. How much of life's
ground all unknown to her had these poor little slippers trodden? Was it
often like that?--that the things created for the fun and the joy found
the paths of tragedy?
She had put them away and was at last going to bed when she idly picked
up the evening paper. What she saw was that the Daisey-Maisey Opera
Company was playing at the city across the river. Something made her
stand there very still. Could it be--? Might it not be--?
She did not know. Would she ever know?
It drew her back to the girl's room. She was sleeping serenely. With
shaded candle Katie stood at the door watching her. Surely the hour was
past! Sleep such as that must draw one back to life.
Lying there in the sweet dignity of her braided hair, in that simple
lovely gown, she might have been Ann indeed.
There was tenderness just then in the heart of Katherine Wayneworth
Jones. She was glad that this girl who was sleeping as though sleep had
been a treasure long withheld, was knowing to-night the balm of a good
bed, glad that she could sink so unquestioningly into the lap of
protection. Protection!--it was that which one had in a place like this.
Why was it given the Anns--and not the Vernas? The sleeping girl seemed
to feel that all was well in the house which sheltered her that night.
Suddenly Katie knew what it was had gone. Fear. It was terror had slipped
back, leaving the weariness which can give itself over to sleep. Katie
was thinking, striking deeper things than were wont to invade Katie's
meditations. The protection of a Wayne, the chivalrous comradeship of a
Captain Prescott--how different the life of an Ann from the life this
girl might have had! She stood at the door for a long moment, looking at
her with a searching tenderness. What had she been through? What was
there left for her?
Once, as a child, she had taken a turtle from its native mud and brought
it home. Soon after that they moved into an apartment and her father
said that she must give the turtle up. "But, father," she had cried, "you
don't understand! I took it! Now how can I throw it away?"
"You are right, Katherine," he had replied gravely--her dear, honorable,
understanding father; "it is rather inconvenient to have a turtle in an
apartment, but, as you say, responsibilities are greater than
conveniences."
She was thinking of that story as she finally went to bed.