OTTIE,” said Lismore, to his daughter next morning, “what had Joan to say for herself yesterday? I could spare only a few moments at Elm House in the evening, and didn't get her news.”
“I don't think she said very much,” the girl answered, “except about—”
“About what?” he asked carelessly.
“About Douglas Grant. But perhaps she told you?”
“She certainly did not mention the unfortunate young man to me, and I must say I'm surprised she should have mentioned him to you.” Mr. Lismore leisurely turned over the folded pages of his paper. “What had she to say about him?”
“She said that Mr. Cran, just before his death, declared him innocent.”
“Really! You didn't happen to see Mr. Cran during the last three or four weeks of his life, did you, Lottie?”
“No, Father.”
“Then you cannot imagine the change in the man—mentally, I mean.”
“Mentally! Oh, yes, I remember you saying something to Mother.”
“Just so. The innocence of young Grant was one of his hallucinations.”
“I see! I told Joan I couldn't believe it. But she does.”
“It would be disrespectful to the memory of her benefactor for her to do otherwise. Mr. Cran was also convinced that Mr. Stormont and I were his enemies!”
“Oh!”?
“But”—suddenly Lismore dropped the paper and faced his daughter—“the most pitiful sign of madness was shown in his leaving the house and five thousand a year to his secretary.”
“Joan! But she was always so good to him. She was far more than a mere secretary.”
“Allow me, Lottie. I have nothing to say against the girl. I don't even suggest that she took advantage of his weakness at the last. But I am bound to tell you that had he died a week sooner, the house and a hundred thousand dollars would have come to you, while she would have received just five thousand.” So saying, Mr. Lismore threw down the paper, with what might have been a gesture of Christian resignation, rose and left the room and, immediately after, the house.
He was by no means an astute man as to the workings of human nature, but he knew his daughter, and he felt that he had said just enough for the present. Lottie would not doubt his statement, which he had invented during his ride home that morning, but she would begin to wonder about Joan March.
And sure enough, it was not long before Lottie was asking herself all sorts of ugly questions concerning the girl, her friend, to whom her hundred thousand had gone.
N the same morning, but some ninety minutes later, the new owner of Elm House was seated at the writing-table in the library. Joan had letters to answer, but none of them held her attention now. She was examining, by no means for the first time, a half-sheet of note-paper, once folded small, which had been slipped into her hand, hurriedly, without a word, at the door of Elm House on an early autumn night two years ago. It was written in pencil, hastily yet clearly enough, and ran:
The address which followed named an obscure little town in Canada. Joan, whose training had made her methodical, had taken the trouble to learn that it promised to become a mining center of importance, silver and gold having been discovered in payable quantities in the district.
T last, with a sigh, she folded the note and laid it in a trinket-box, which she would presently put away in the safe. For the first time she wished the writer had left her free to consult at least one person in emergency. She could have trusted Miss Gosling without hesitation.
The difficulty was this: The letter she had written and mailed on the afternoon of Mr. Cran's fatal seizure ought to have reached its destination—she had made inquiry of the post office—fully a week ago. It had asked for a telegraphed answer.
Of course, as the note in the trinket-box reminded her, a letter to the address given would reach him only “sooner or later.” If he were engaged in mining work, which was the likeliest thing in the world, he might be far out of range of the post office. Also, a letter might get lost.
What ought she to do? Try the effect of a telegram which might possibly reach him where a letter would not, or simply let matters take their course?
Joan was not a young woman of indecision, but for once she was seriously thinking of seeking a sign in the fall of a coin when she saw Miss Gosling coming up the garden walk; and going quickly to the open window, she requested her aunt to join her.