第75章 CHAPTER XVII(3)

"Of course I should. If you had not told me I should have found it out, now that my suspicions were aroused. Thank you, Judge Baxter.

Now I must go."

"Go? Go where?"

"Home--to South Harniss."

"Nonsense! You're not going to South Harniss yet awhile. You're going to have dinner with my wife and me."

"Thank you. I can't. I must go at once. By the next train."

"There isn't any train until nearly four o'clock." Then, noticing her look of disappointment, he went on to say: "But that shan't make any difference. I'll send you over in my nephew's automobile. I'm not sufficiently up-to-date to own one of the cussed--excuse me things, but he does and I borrow it occasionally. I don't drive it; good heavens, no! But his man shall drive you over and I'll guarantee you beat the train. If you don't, it won't be because you go too slow. Now, of course, you'll stay to dinner."

But Mary shook her head. "You're very kind, Judge," she said, "and I thank you very much, but--"

"Well, but what?"

"But I--I can't. I--I--Oh, don't you see? I couldn't eat, or even try to--now. I want to get home--to them."

"And so you shall, my dear. And in double-quick time, too. Here, Jesse," opening the door to the outer office and addressing the clerk, "you step over and tell Samuel that I want to borrow his car and Jim for two hours. Tell him I want them now. And if his car is busy go to Cahoon's garage and hire one with a driver. Hurry!"

"And now, Mary," turning to her, "can you tell me any more about your plans, provided you have had time to make any? If this story about your uncles' business troubles is true, what do you intend doing? Or don't you know?"

Mary replied that her plans were very indefinite, as yet.

"I have some ideas," she said; "some that I had thought I might use after I had finished school and come back to the store. They may not be worth much; they were schemes for building up the business there and adding some other sorts of business to it. The first thing I shall do is to see how bad the situation really is."

"I hope it isn't bad. Poor Zoeth certainly has had trouble enough in his life."

There was a significance in his tone which Mary plainly did not understand.

"What trouble do you mean?" she asked.

The Judge looked at her, coughed, and then said hastily: "Oh, nothing in particular; every one of us has troubles, I suppose.

But, Mary, if--if you find that the story is true and--ahem--a little money might help to--er--tide the firm over--why, I--I think perhaps that it might be--ahem--arranged so that--"

He seemed to be having difficulty in finishing the sentence. Mary did not wait to hear the end.

"Thank you, Judge," she said quickly. "Thank you, but I am hoping it may not be so bad as that. I am going back there, you know, and--well, as Uncle Shadrach would say, we may save the ship yet. At any rate, we won't call for help until the last minute."

Judge Baxter regarded her with admiration.

"Shadrach and Zoeth are rich in one respect," he declared; "they've got you. But it is a wicked shame that you must give up your school and your opportunities to--"

She held up her hand.

"Please don't!" she begged. "If you knew how glad I am to be able to do something, if it is only to give up!"

The car and Jim were at the door a few minutes later and Mary, having said good-by to the Judge and promised faithfully to keep him posted as to events at home, climbed into the tonneau and was whizzed away. Jim, the driver, after a few attempts at conversation, mainly concerning the "unseasonableness" of the weather, finding responses few and absently given, relapsed into silence. Silence was what Mary desired, silence and speed, and Jim obliged with the latter.

Over the road by which, a dozen years before, she had driven in the old buggy she now rode again. Then, as now, she wondered what she should find at her journey's end. Here, however, the resemblance ceased, for whereas then she looked forward, with a child's anticipations, to nothing more definite than new sights and new and excitingly delightful adventures, now she saw ahead--what? Great care and anxiety and trouble certainly, these at the best; and at the worst, failure and disappointment and heartbreak. And behind her she was leaving opportunity and the pleasant school life and friends, leaving them forever.

She was leaving Crawford, too, leaving him without a word of explanation. She had had no time to write even a note. Mrs. Wyeth, after protesting vainly against her guest's decision to leave for the Cape by the earliest train in the morning, had helped to pack a few essential belongings; the others she was to pack and send later on, when she received word to do so. The three, Mrs. Wyeth, Miss Pease, and Mary, had talked and argued and planned until almost daylight. Then followed an hour or two of uneasy sleep, a hurried breakfast, and the rush to the train. Mary had not written Crawford; the shock of what she had been told at the Howes' and her great anxiety to see Judge Baxter and learn if what she had heard was true had driven even her own love story from her mind. Now she remembered that she had given him permission to call, not this evening but the next, to say good-by before leaving for the West.

He would be disappointed, poor fellow. Well, she must not think of that. She must not permit herself to think of anyone but her uncles or of anything except the great debt of love and gratitude she owed them and of the sacrifice they had made for her. She could repay a little of that sacrifice now; at least she could try. She would think of that and of nothing else.

And then she wondered what Crawford would think or say when he found she had gone.