"But, Aileen, won't you stay to supper?" said the twins at one and the same time; "we always have you to celebrate our checkerberry picnic."

"Dear knows, I've celebrated the checkerberries enough already," she said laughing,--but 'Lias noticed that her lips were still colorless,--"and I think, dearies, that it's no time for us to be celebrating any more to-day when poor Mrs. Googe is in such trouble."

"What's up?" said 'Lias.

The twins' eagerness to impart their knowledge of recent events to 'Lias was such that the sorrow of parting was greatly mitigated; moreover, Aileen left them with a promise to come up again soon.

"I'm ready, Tave," she said as he drew up at the door. 'Lias helped her in.

"Come again soon, Aileen--you've promised," the twins shouted after her.

She turned and waved her hand to them. "I'll come," she called back in answer.

They drove in silence over the Rothel, past the brick house where Emlie's trap was still standing, but now hitched. Octavius Buzzby's face was gray; his features were drawn.

"Did you hear, Aileen?" he said, after they had driven on a while and begun to meet the quarrymen returning from Flamsted, many of whom were talking excitedly and gesticulating freely.

"Yes--Dulcie told me something. I don't know how true it is," she answered quietly.

"It's true," he said grimly, "and it'll kill his mother."

"I don't know about that;" she spoke almost indifferently; "you can stand a good deal when it comes to the point."

Octavius turned almost fiercely upon her.

"What do you know about it?" he demanded. "You're neither wife nor mother, but you might show a little more feeling, being a woman. Do you realize what this thing means to us--to Flamsted--to the family?"

"Tave," she turned her gray eyes full upon him, the pupils were unnaturally enlarged, "I don't suppose I do know what it means to all of you--but it makes me sick to talk about it--please don't--I can't bear it--take me home as quick as you can."

She grew whiter still.

"Ain't you well, Aileen?" he asked in real anxiety, repenting of his hard word to her.

"Not very, Tave; the truth is I ate too many checkerberries and had an attack of indigestion--I shall be all right soon--and they sent over for Mrs. Caukins just at that time, and when Dulcie came back she told me--it's awful--but it's different with you; he belongs to you all here and you've always loved him."

"Loved him!"--Octavius Buzzby's voice shook with suppressed emotion--"I should say loved him; he's been dear to me as my own--I thank G.o.d Louis Champney isn't living to go through this disgrace!"

He drew up in the road to let a gang of workmen separate--he had been driving the mare at full speed. Both he and Aileen caught fragments of what they were saying.

"It's d.a.m.ned hard on his mother--"

"They say there's a woman in the case--"

"Generally is with them highflyers--"

"I'll bet he'll make for the old country, if he can get clear he'll--"

"Europe's full of 'em--reg'lar cesspool they say--"

"Any reward offered?"

"The Company'll have to fork over or there'll be the biggest strike in Flamsted that the stone-cutting business has seen yet--"

"The papers don't say what the shortage is--"

"What's Van Ostend's daughter's name, anybody know?--they say he was sweet on her--"

"She's a good haul," a man laughed hoa.r.s.ely, insultingly, "but she didn't bite, an' lucky for her she didn't."

"You're 'bout right--them high rollers don't want to raise nothing but game c.o.c.ks--no prison birds, eh?"

The men pa.s.sed on, twenty or more. Octavius Buzzby, and the one who in the last hour had left her girlhood behind her, drove homewards in silence. Her eyes were lowered; her white cheeks burned again, but with shame at what she was obliged to hear.

XII

The strike was averted; the men were paid in full on the Wednesday following that Sat.u.r.day the events of which brought for a time Flamsted, its families, and its great industry into the garish light of undesirable publicity. In the sheds and the quarries the routine work went on as usual, but speculation was rife as to the outcome of the search for the missing treasurer. A considerable amount of money was put up by the sporting element among the workmen, that the capture would take place within three weeks. Meanwhile, the daily papers furnished pabulum for the general curiosity and kept the interest as to the outcome on the increase. Some reports had it that Champney Googe was already in Europe; others that he had been seen in one of the Central American capitals. Among those who knew him best, it was feared he was already in hiding in his native State; but beyond their immediate circle no suspicion of this got abroad.

Among the native Flamstedites, who had known and loved Champney from a child, there was at first a feeling of consternation mingled with shame of the disgrace to his native town. They felt that Champney had played false to his two names, and through the honored names of Googe and Champney he had brought disgrace upon all connections, whether by ties of blood or marriage. To him they had looked to be a leader in the new Flamsted that was taking its place in the world's work. For a few days it seemed as if the keystone of the arch of their ambition and pride had fallen and general ruin threatened. Then, after the first week pa.s.sed without news as to his whereabouts, there was bewilderment, followed on the second Monday by despair deepened by a suspense that was becoming almost unbearable.

It was a matter of surprise to many to find the work in sheds and quarries proceeding with its accustomed regularity; to find that to the new comers in Flamsted the affair was an impersonal one, that Champney Googe held no place among the workmen; that his absconding meant to them simply another one of the "high rollers" fleeing from his deserts.

Little by little, during that first week, the truth found its way home to each man and woman personally interested in this erring son of Flamsted's old families, that a man is but one working unit among millions, and that unit counts in a community only when its work is constructive in the communal good.

At a meeting of the bank directors the telling fact was disclosed that all of Mrs. Googe's funds--the purchase money of the quarry lands--had been withdrawn nine months previous; but this, they ascertained later, had been done with her full consent and knowledge.

Romanzo was summoned with the Company's books to the New York office.

The Colonel seemed to his friends to have aged ten years in seven days.

He wore the look of a man haunted by the premonition of some impending catastrophe. But he confided his trouble to no one, not even to his wife. Aurora Googe's friends suffered with her and for her; they began, at last, to fear for her reason if some definite word should not soon be forthcoming.

The tension in the Champ-au-Haut household became almost intolerable as the days pa.s.sed without any satisfaction as to the fugitive's whereabouts. After the first shock, and some unpleasant recrimination on the part of Mrs. Champney, this tension showed itself by silently ignoring the recent family event. Mrs. Champney found plausible excuse in the state of her health to see no one. Octavius Buzzby attended to his daily duties with the face of a man who has come through a severe sickness; Hannah complained that "he didn't eat enough to keep a cat alive." His lack of appet.i.te was an accompaniment to sleepless, thought-racked nights.

Aileen Armagh said nothing--what could she say?--but sickened at her own thoughts. She made excuse to be on the street, at the station, in The Gore at the Caukinses', with Joel Quimber and Elmer Wiggins, as well as among the quarrymen's families, whose children she taught in an afternoon singing cla.s.s, in the hope of hearing some enlightening word; of learning something definite in regard to the probabilities of escape; of getting some inkling of the whole truth. She gathered a little here, a little there; she put two and two together, and from what she heard as a matter of speculation, and from what she knew to be true through Mrs.

Caukins via Romanzo in New York, she found that Champney Googe had sacrificed his honor, his mother, his friends, and the good name of his native town for the unlawful love of gain. She was obliged to accept this fact, and its acceptance completed the work of destruction that the revelation of Champney Googe's unfaith, through the declaration of a pa.s.sion that led to no legitimate consummation in marriage, had wrought in her young buoyant spirit. She was broken beneath the sudden c.u.mulative and overwhelming knowledge of evil; her youth found no abiding-place either for heart or soul. To Father Honore she could not go--not yet!

On the afternoon of Monday week, a telegram came for the Colonel. He opened it in the post office. Octavius coming in at the same time for his first mail noticed at once the change in his face--he looked stricken.

"What is it, Colonel?" he asked anxiously, joining him.

For answer Milton Caukins held out the telegram. It was from the State authorities; its purport that the Colonel was to form a posse and be prepared to aid, to the extent of his powers, the New York detectives who were coming on the early evening train. The fugitive from justice had left New York and been traced to Hallsport.

"I've had a premonition of this--it's the last stroke, Tave--here, in his home--among us--and his mother!--and, in duty bound, I, of all others, must be the man to finish the ugly job--"

Octavius Buzzby's face worked strangely. "It's tough for you, Colonel, but I guess a Maine man knows his whole duty--only, for G.o.d's sake, don't ask me!" It was a groan rather than an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. The two continued to talk in a low tone.

"I shall call for volunteers and then get them sworn in--it means stiff work for to-night. We'll keep this from Aurora, Tave; she mustn't know _this_."