by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER XI LUCILE SHARES HER SECRET
As Lucile returned to her room it seemed to her that she was being hedgedabout on all sides by friends who had a right to demand that she revealthe secret hiding-place of the stolen books. The university which haddone so much for her, Frank Morrow, her father's friend, the greatscientific library which was a friend to all, and now this splendidartist who worked in leather and gold; they all appeared to be reachingout their hands to her.
In her room for two hours she paced the floor. Then she came to adecision.
"I'll tell one of them; tell the whole story and leave it to him. Whoshall it be?"
The answer came to her instantly: Frank Morrow.
"Yes, he's the one," she whispered. "He's the most human of them all.White-haired as he is, I believe he can understand the heart of a childand--and of a girl like me."
She found him busy with some customers. When he had completed the saleand the customers had gone, she drew her chair close to his and told himthe story frankly from beginning to end. The only thing she left out wasthe fact that she held suspicions against the young millionaire's son.
"If there's ground for suspicion, he'll discover it," she told herself.
Frank Morrow listened attentively. At times he leaned forward with thelight on his face that one sometimes sees upon the face of a boy who ishearing a good story of pirates and the sea.
"Well," he dampened his lips as she finished, "well!"
For some time after that there was silence in the room, a silence soprofound that the ticking of Frank Morrow's watch sounded loud as agrandfather's clock.
At last Frank Morrow wheeled about in his chair and spoke.
"You know, Miss Lucile," he said slowly, "I am no longer a child, exceptin spirit. I have read a great deal. I have thought a great deal, sittingalone in this chair, both by day and by night. Very often I have thoughtof us, of the whole human race, of our relation to the world, to thebeing who created us and to one another.
"I have come to think of life like this," he said, his eyes kindling. "Itmay seem a rather gloomy philosophy of life, but when you think of it,it's a mighty friendly one. I think of the whole human race as being on ahuge raft in mid-ocean. There's food and water enough for everyone if allof us are saving, careful and kind. Not one of us knows how we came onthe raft. No one knows whither we are bound. From time to time we hearthe distant waves break on some shore, but what shore we cannot tell. Theearth, of course, is our raft and the rest of the universe our sea.
"What's the answer to all this? Just this much: Since we are so situated,the greatest, best thing, the thing that will bring us the greatestamount of real happiness, is to be kind to all, especially those weakerthan ourselves, just as we would if we were adrift on a raft in theAtlantic.
"Without all this philosophy, you have caught the spirit of the thing. Ican't advise you. I can only offer to assist you in any way you maysuggest. It's a strange case. The old man is doubtless a crank. Many bookcollectors are. It may be, however, that there is some stronger hand backof it all. The girl appears to be the old man's devoted slave and is tooyoung truly to understand right from wrong. I should say, however, thatshe is clever far beyond her years."
Lucile left the shop strengthened and encouraged. She had not found asolution to her problem but had been told by one much older and wiserthan she that she was not going at the affair in the wrong way. She hadreceived his assurance of his assistance at any time when it seemedneeded.
That night a strange thing happened. Lucile had learned by repeatedexperience that very often the solution of life's perplexing problemscomes to us when we are farthest from them and engaged in work or pursuitof pleasure which is most remote from them. Someone had given her aticket to the opera. Being a lover of music, she had decided to abandonher work and the pursuit of the all-absorbing mystery, to forget herselflistening to outbursts of enchanting song.
The outcome had been all that she might hope for. Lost in the greatswells of music which came to her from hundreds of voices or enchanted bythe range and beauty of a single voice, she forgot all until the lastcurtain had been called and the crowd thronged out.
There was a flush on her cheek and new light in her eyes as she felt thecool outer air of the street.
She had walked two blocks to her station and was about to mount thestairs when, to her utter astonishment, she saw the mystery child dartacross the street. Almost by instinct she went in full pursuit.
The child, all oblivious of her presence, after crossing the street,darted down an alley and, after crossing two blocks, entered one of thosedark and dingy streets which so often flank the best and busiest avenuesof a city.
At the third door to the left, a sort of half basement entrance that onereached by descending a short stairs, the child paused and fumbled at thedoorknob. Lucile was just in time to get a view of the interior as thedoor flew open. The next instant she sprang back into the shadows.
She gripped at her wildly beating heart and steadied herself against thewall as she murmured, "It couldn't be! Surely! Surely it could not be."
And yet she was convinced that her eyes had not deceived her. The personwho had opened the door was none other than the woman who had treated thechild so shamefully and had dragged her along the street. And now thechild had come to the door of the den which this woman called home and ofher own free will had entered the place and shut the door. What could bethe meaning of all this.
Some mysteries are long in solving. Some are apparently never solved.Some scarcely become mysteries before their solution appears. Thismystery was of the latter sort.
Plucking up all the courage she could command, Lucile made her way downthe steps and, crowding herself through a narrow opening, succeeded inreaching a position by a window. Here she could see without being seenand could catch fragments of the conversation which went on within.
The child had advanced to the center of the room. The woman and a man,worse in appearance, more degraded than the woman, stood staring at her.There was something heroic about the tense, erect bearing of the child.
"Like Joan of Arc," Lucile thought.
The child was speaking. The few words that Lucile caught sent thrillsinto her very soul.
The child was telling the woman that she had had a book, which belongedto her friend, Monsieur Le Bon. This book was very old and much prized byhim. She had had it with her that other night in a lunch box. The womanhad taken it. She had come for it. It must be given back.
As the child finished, the woman burst into a hoarse laugh. Then shelaunched forth in a tirade of abusive language. She did not admit havingthe book nor yet deny it. She was too intent upon abusing the child andthe old man who had befriended her for that.
At last she sprang at the child. The child darted for the door, but theman had locked and bolted it. There followed a scramble about the roomwhich resulted in the upsetting of chairs and the knocking of kitchenutensils from the wall. At last the child, now fighting and sobbing, wasroped to the high post of an ancient bedstead.
Then, to Lucile's horror, she saw the man thrust a heavy iron pokerthrough the grate of the stove in which a fire burned brightly.
Her blood ran cold. Chills raced up her spine. What was the man'spurpose? Certainly nothing good. Whatever these people were to the child,whatever the child might be, the thing must be stopped. The child had atleast done one heroic deed; she had come back for that book, the bookwhich at this moment rested in Lucile's own room, Frank Morrow's book.She had come for it knowing what she must face and had come not throughfear but through love for her patriarchal friend, Monsieur Le Bon.Somehow she must be saved.
With a courage born of despair, Lucile made her way from the position bythe window toward the door. As she did so, she thought she caught amovement on the street above her. She was sure that a second later sheheard the sound of lightly running footsteps. Had she been watched fromabove? What was to come of that? Ther
e was no time to form an answer. Onehand was on the knob. With the other she beat the door. The door swungopen. She stepped inside. It seemed to her that the door shut itselfbehind her. For a second her heart stood still as she realized that theman was behind her; that the door was bolted.