"Goin' to put on a white dress?" asked Mrs. Carder. "Kind o' cool for that, ain't it?"

"I don't think so. I have very few dresses, and I get tired of wearing the same one."

Mrs. Carder sighed. "Rufus will buy you all the dresses you want if you'll only get strong. I can see he's dreadful worried because you look pale."

"Well, I am going to try to become sunburned to-day. I'm so glad you thought of the meadow, Mrs. Carder. Perhaps you like flowers, too."

The old woman sighed. "I used to. I've 'most forgot what they look like."

"I'll bring you some if there are any."

Geraldine's eyes held an excited light as she ironed away. After the eleven o'clock dinner she went up to her room to dress. Color came into her cheeks as she saw her reflection in the bit of mirror. What a strange thing she was doing. Supposing Miss Upton's paragon had already become absorbed in his own interests. How absurd she should feel wandering afield in the costume he had ordered, if he never came and she never heard from him again.

"Wear white."

What could it mean? What possible difference could the color of her gown make in any plan he might have concocted for her a.s.sistance? However, in the dearth of all hope, in her helplessness and poverty, and aching from the heart-wound Rufus Carder had given her, why should she not obey?

The color receded from her face, and again delving into her trunk she brought forth an old, white, embroidered crepe shawl with deep fringe which had belonged to her mother. This she wrapped about her and started downstairs. She feared that Carder would accompany her in her ramble.

She could hear his rough voice speaking to some workmen in front of the house, and she moved noiselessly out to the kitchen.

Mrs. Carder looked up from the bread she was moulding and started, staring over her spectacles at the girl.

"You look like a bride," she said.

"I'll bring you some flowers," replied Geraldine, hastening out of the kitchen-door down the incline toward the yellow office.

"h.e.l.lo, there," called the voice she loathed, and Carder came striding after her. She stood still and faced him. The long lines and deep, clinging fringe of the creamy white shawl draped her in statuesque folds. Carder gasped in admiration.

"You look perfectly beautiful!" he exclaimed.

The young girl reminded herself that she was working to become a trusty.

"What's the idea," he went on, "of makin' such a toilet for the benefit of the cows?" At the same time, the wish being father to the thought, the glorious suspicion a.s.sailed him that Geraldine was perhaps not unwilling to show him her beauty in a new light. It stood to reason that she must possess a normal girlish vanity.

She forced a faint smile. "It's just my mother's old shawl," she replied.

"Want me to help you find your flowers?" he asked.

"If you wish to," she answered, "but it isn't discourteous to like to be alone sometimes, is it, Mr. Carder? You were saying at dinner that I looked tired. I really don't feel very well. I thought I would like to roam about alone a while in the sunshine."

Her gentle humility brought forth a loud: "Oh, of course, of course, that's all right. Suit yourself and you'll suit me. Just find some roses for your own cheeks while you're about it, that's all I ask."

"I'll try," she answered, and walked on. Carder accompanied her as far as his office, where he paused.

"Good-bye, bless your little sweet heart," he said, low and ardently, in the tone that always seemed to make the girl's very soul turn over.

"Good-bye," she answered, without meeting the hunger of his oblique gaze; and crossing the driveway she forced herself to move slowly down the gra.s.sy incline that led to the meadow where a number of cows were grazing.

Carder watched longingly her graceful, white figure crowned with gold.

She was safe enough in the meadow. Even if she desired to go out of bounds, she would not invade any public way, hatless, and in clinging white crepe. The cows were excellent chaperones. Nevertheless--he snapped his fingers and Pete came out from behind the office.

Carder did not speak, but pointed after the white figure, and Pete, again dragging the mower, ambled across the driveway and followed on down the slope.

Geraldine heard the clicking and glanced around, sure of what she should see. She smiled a little and shook her head as she walked on.

"Poor little Pete. Good little Pete," she murmured. "I owe him every moment of comfort I've known in this place."

When she considered that she had gone far enough to be free from observation, she turned to let him catch up with her; but when she paused he did likewise and waited immovable.

"I want to talk to you, Pete. I'm so glad of the chance. I'm so thankful to you," she called softly.

The dwarf drank in the delicate radiance of her face with adoring eyes.

"Go on," he replied. "He is watching. He is always watching. You look like an angel, but the devil is at the window. Go on."

She turned back obediently and continued down the slope. When she reached the soft, spongy green of the meadow, the cows regarded her wonderingly. Pete began mowing the long gra.s.s on the edge, working so slowly that the sound did not mar the hush of the place; and sometimes he sank down at ease and pulled apart a jointed stem, his eyes feasting on his charge.

The cows had scorned certain blooms which grew lavishly and which Geraldine waited to gather until it should be time to return. Near a large clump of hazel-bushes she found a low rock, and she stretched out there in the sunshine and quiet, and tried to think.

There had been a little warm spot in her heart ever since that hour when she read Miss Upton's letter. She was no longer utterly friendless. If some miracle should give her back her freedom, this good woman would help her to find independence. She longed to see that village of Keefe.

She wished never again to see a city. Did Benjamin Barry live in Keefe?

Geraldine summoned his image only too easily. Despite Miss Upton's recommendation she did not wish to know him, or to trust him; but think about him she must since she was dressed to his order and in the spot of his selection. How absurd it all was! What dream could he have been indulging when he wrote those words?

The girl could not keep her eyes from the driveway nor banish the pulsing hope that she should see a motor-cycle again speeding up the road. She even rose from her reclining posture lest she should not be sufficiently conspicuous in the field; but the hours pa.s.sed and nothing occurred beyond the cows' occasional cessation from browsing to regard her when she moved, and the occasional arising of Pete from the ground to push his mower idly along the turf.

The flat landscape, the broad sky, everything was laid bare to the windows of the yellow office. She felt certain that should the dusty knight reappear, he would be recognized from afar, and that Rufus Carder would circ.u.mvent any plan he might have. He would stop at nothing, that she knew. She wondered if the law would excuse a man for murdering an intruder who had once been warned off his premises. She did not doubt that Carder would be as ready with the shot-gun she had noticed in his office as he was with the cruel whip. She covered her face with her hands as she recalled the sunny-eyed knight and shuddered at the thought of another meeting between the two. It had been plain that the visitor's youth, strength, and good looks had thrown Carder into a panic. He would stop at nothing. Nothing.

A lanky youth with trousers tucked in his boots at last appeared, slouching down toward the meadow to get the cows.

Geraldine came out of her apprehensive mental pictures with a sigh, and rose. She gathered her flowers, and moved slowly back toward the house.

She must appear to have enjoyed her outing, else it would not seem consistent for her to wish to come again to-morrow; and she must, she must come again! Her poor contradictory little heart found itself clinging to the one vague, absurd hope, despite its fears.

CHAPTER IX

The Bird of Prey

Not until another sunny day had pa.s.sed uneventfully did Geraldine realize how much hope she was hanging upon the knight of the motor-cycle. Despite his youth, his manner and voice had been those of one accustomed to exercising authority. He certainly had had something definite in mind when he wrote that message to her. She knew so well Pete's stupid demeanor, that, as she roamed in the meadow that second day, she meditated on the probability that the visitor had despaired of her receiving the message, and had concluded to abandon his idea, whatever it might have been.

It was at least a relief from odious pressure to be out in the field alone. The soft-eyed cows, an occasional bird flying overhead, and the intermittent clicking of Pete's lawn-mower as he kept his respectful distance were all peaceful. There was not a tree for a bird to light upon. Even birds fled from the Carder farm. The great elm could have sheltered many, but the feathered creatures seemed not to trust it.

Perhaps a reason lay in the fact that numbers of cats lived under the barn and outhouses. Nearly always one might be seen crouching and crawling along the ground looking cautiously to the right and left. None was ever kept for a pet or allowed in the house or fed. They lived on rats, mice, birds, and the field mice, and were practically wild animals. In their frightened, suspicious actions at sight of a human being, Geraldine recognized a reflection of her own mental att.i.tude; and she pitied the poor things even while they excited her repugnance.

Spring and no birds, she thought sadly, gathering her few wild flowers when the cows had gone home that second afternoon. She strained her eyes down the driveway, Blankness. Blankness everywhere. At the house, misery.