  The following night found Florence seated on the after deck of a large lake steamer bound for Chicago. Strange and varied were the thoughts and emotions that stirred her soul as she watched the dark shoreline of the North Peninsula fade in the distance. There was a moment when she sprang to her feet and stretched her arms far out as she cried, “I want to go back! Oh, I want to go back!” At this moment the woods and the water, the sunsets, the moon at midnight, the fish, all the wild forest creatures were calling her back. Yet, even as this yearning passed, she felt the smooth comfort of silk stockings, caught the bright gleam of red and blue in her dress and knew that here, too, was joy. In her imagination she heard the rush and felt the thrill of a great city, experienced again the push and pull of it, and once more accepted its challenge. “I am strong!” she cried aloud. “The summer, this wild life, has renewed my powers.” But Jeanne? Ah, there was the question. She had accepted a mission. She had agreed to take the little French girl into the north woods and see that she had rest. Had she performed this mission well or ill? To this question she could form no certain answer. Life in this out-of-the-way place had so pressed in upon her, adventure and mystery had so completely taken possession of her, that she had found too little time to think of Jeanne. “What if I have failed?” Her heart sank. “What if the doctor says I have failed?” Jeanne was asleep in her stateroom. She seemed well and happy, quite prepared for the great testing which lay just before her. But who could tell? “So often,” she thought to herself, “we are led away from the main purpose of our lives by some surprising affair which springs straight up before our eyes and for the moment blinds us.” Yet, as she reviewed the events of the past weeks she experienced few regrets. She had been working, not for her own glory, but that others might find success and happiness. “But what came of it all?” she asked herself. “What mysteries did we solve?” The problems that had perplexed her now passed, like soldiers on parade, before her mind’s eye. Who had run them down and all but drowned them on that first night? The gamblers? The gypsies? Green Eyes and her rich friends? She had found no answer. Where were the three priceless rubies? Did they lie among the ashes of the gamblers’ cottage? Had the gamblers taken them when they departed? Had the lady cop regained possession of them? Where was the lady cop, and what was her real name? Again no answer. What of the lady cop’s trunk? Why had the gamblers turned the cabin upside down in search of an empty trunk? How were Tillie and she ever to return it now? The problem that stood out in her mind strongest of all was this: Who had taken them for that terrible ride out into the night waters of Lake Huron? “The gamblers, to be sure!” Tillie would have said at once. It seemed probable that the villagers thought the same. “And perhaps they burned the gamblers’ cottage for that reason,” she told herself. Yet, of this there was no proof. Turkey Trot and Jeanne had surprised gypsies in a feast near Tillie’s abandoned boat. Jeanne believed these gypsies had taken them on that all but fatal ride. Had they? “If they did,” she told herself, “they were striking at Jeanne. They may strike again.” The conclusion she reached at the end of this review of affairs was that she must keep a close watch on Petite Jeanne until the first night’s performance was over. “They kidnapped her on the eve of her other great success,” she murmured. “They may repeat. “And yet, that was France. This is America.” At that she rose and walked away to their stateroom. |
|
