Then without in the least knowing what she was going to say nor why she said it, Polly inquired suddenly:

"Richard, do you think Margaret Adams is happy in her marriage? I have so often wondered. Of course she writes me she is."

Several years before, Miss Adams had married one of the richest men in New York City and since then had retired permanently from the stage.

Indeed, many persons considered that Polly had succeeded to her fame and position.

Richard Hunt shook his head. "Really, I don't know any more than you do, Miss Polly," he returned. "But she has a fine son and certainly looks to me to be happy."

Polly smiled. At least she had succeeded in persuading her companion to call her "Miss Polly." That was a step in the right direction, for in spite of her own boldness in using his first name as she had done years before, up to this moment she had been addressed as Miss O'Neill.

But there were so many things to say that she quite forgot in what way she should say them and talked on every minute of the time.

She had been so lonely, so depressed until now, that life had seemed to have lost almost all its former interest.

When she was plainly too tired to go further Richard Hunt sat down with her on a wayside bench for ten minutes. Then he resolutely rose and said good-bye.

"I am ever so glad to find that you are so much better," he concluded finally. "I see there is no cause for anxiety." Yet even as he spoke the man wondered how any human being could manage to be as delicate looking as Polly O'Neill and yet do all the things she was able to accomplish?

Just now, of course, she did look rather worse than usual for her run; and then the walk afterwards had used up her strength. Besides, she had been trying so hard to persuade her old friend again to cherish a little liking for her and at this moment was convinced of her failure.

She shook her head. "Thank you," she answered quietly. "It has done me good to have seen some one of whom I am fond. It hasn't been altogether cheerful being out here ill and alone. It was kind of you to have cared enough to inquire about me. I suppose you will soon be going back to work. Good luck and farewell."

Polly reached out her slender hand, which was white and small with blue veins upon it. In her haste on leaving her apartment she had, of course, forgotten gloves.

However, instead of shaking her hand quietly, as both of them expected, Richard Hunt raised her fingers to his lips.

"I am not going away from Colorado immediately. May I come and see you soon again?" he inquired. A few minutes before he had not the slightest intention of ever deliberately trying to see Polly O'Neill alone as long as they lived. But she did look so forlorn and as lonely as a forsaken little girl. No one could ever have guessed that this was the celebrated Miss O'Neill whose acting had charmed many thousands of people during the last eight or ten years.

Polly bit her lips. "Then you will come? I was afraid to ask you," she replied. "I want so much to tell you about a queer little girl whom I have come across out in these wilds. Her name is Bobbin and she seems to be deaf and dumb. I feel that I ought to do something for her and don't know exactly what to do. Perhaps I'll adopt her, although I'm afraid the family and Betty Graham won't approve. But anyhow, Sylvia, the well-known Doctor Sylvia Wharton, who is a children's specialist, may be able to do something for her."

Naturally this idea of adopting Bobbin had not dawned upon Polly until the instant of announcing it. But the more she thought of taking the girl to Sylvia's care the more the idea appealed to her. Besides, Bobbin perhaps might awaken Mr. Hunt's interest if he could see the child and hear her tragic story. The little girl might be made attractive with her queer eyes and sunburned hair, if she were cleaner and more civilized.

"You will come some day and help me decide what to do, won't you?" Polly urged. "One's chief difficulty is not alone that Bobbin won't be adopted, she won't even let herself be discovered. She is such a queer, wild little thing."

Then she watched her companion until he was entirely out of sight and afterwards got up and strolled slowly home.

CHAPTER XII

THE WAY HOME

NOT a long time afterward Bobbin must have changed her mind for some reason or other, for voluntarily she came to call on Miss O'Neill. That is, she appeared in the garden and threw a queer scarlet flower up to the veranda. Then she waited without trying to escape when Polly came down to talk to her. And evidently she must have felt, somewhere back in the odd recesses of her mind, that she was to be considered a visitor, for she had washed her face and hands and even her hair. Indeed, though it hung perfectly straight, Polly thought that she had never seen more splendid hair in her life, it held such strange bright colors from being always exposed to the sun and air; besides, it was long and heavy.

Moreover, Bobbin wore an old red jacket, which some one recently had given her, over the same pitiful calico dress.

By and by, using all the tact she possessed, Polly persuaded her visitor out of the yard and up-stairs to her own rooms. Of course Marie, the maid, was shocked and displeased, but after all she was fairly accustomed to her mistress's eccentricities. Moreover, after a little while she too became interested in Bobbin. The first thing Polly undertook to do was to feed her visitor. She had an idea that Bobbin might be hungry, but she did not dream how hungry. The girl ate like a little wolf, ravenously, secretly if it had been possible. Only, fortunately, she had learned something of table manners from her occasional training in inst.i.tutions, so that she at least understood the use of a knife and fork, and altogether her hostess was less horrified than she had expected to be.

Later on Bobbin and Polly undertook to have a conversation. This they managed by acquiring large sheets of paper and nicely sharpened pencils.

But it was astonishing how easily Bobbin appeared to understand whatever her new friend said to her and how readily she seemed to be willing to accept her suggestions.

The truth is that the half savage little girl had conceived a sudden, unexplainable devotion to the strange lady whom she had discovered asleep on the sands. Perhaps Bobbin too may have dreamed dreams and imagined quaint fairy tales, so that Polly's appearance answered some fancy of her own. But whatever it was, she had offered her faithful allegiance to this possible fairy princess or just ordinary, human woman. Yet how Bobbin was to keep the faith it was well that neither she nor Polly knew at the present time.

However, by the end of her visit the girl had promised to go back to the home which the town had provided for her and to do her best to learn all she could. As a reward for this she was to be allowed to make other visits to Miss O'Neill. She was even to be allowed to eat from the same blue and white china and drink tea from the same blue cup.

Moreover, before Bobbin's final departure Marie persuaded her into the bathroom and half an hour later she came forth beautifully clean and dressed in a discarded costume of Polly's, which was too long for her, but otherwise served very well. It was merely a many times washed white silk shirt waist and blue serge walking skirt and coat. They made Bobbin appear rather absurd and old, so that Polly was not sure she had not liked her best in her rags. However, both Bobbin and Marie were too pleased for her to offer criticism; yet, notwithstanding, Polly made up her mind that she would try and purchase the girl more suitable clothes as soon as possible and that she would write and ask Betty Graham's and Sylvia's advice in regard to her.

For Richard Hunt had not come to see her since their accidental meeting and she could hope for no interest from him. Polly wished she had never laid eyes upon him, for their little talk had only served to start a chain of memories she wished forgotten. Besides, of course, she felt lonelier than ever, since there is nothing so depressing as waiting for a friend who does not come.

Soon after dinner that evening Polly undressed and put on a pretty kind of tea gown of dark red silk, the color she had always fancied ever since girlhood. She was idling about in her sitting room wondering what she could do to amuse herself when unexpectedly Mr. Hunt was announced.

"Why, Polly," he began on entering, his manner changed from the coldness of their first meeting, "do you know what that gown you are wearing brings back to me? Our talk in the funny little boarding house in Boston so many years ago, when you explained to me that you had run off and were in hiding in order to try and learn to be an actress. I wish I could tell you how proud I am of your success."

But Polly did not wish to talk of her success tonight. So she only shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, I have always been doing foolish things for the sake of my acting and yet I don't seem to amount to much."

After this visit Richard Hunt returned half a dozen times. Polly did not understand whether he was acting in the West not far from Colorado Springs or whether he too was taking a holiday. She asked the question once, but as her old friend did not answer her explicitly she let the matter drop.

Nevertheless it was quite true that from the time his visits began she grew steadily better. Finally, about ten days before Christmas, Miss O'Neill's physician announced that she might return to the New Hampshire hills to complete her cure at her sister's home.

Then came the hour of final decision in regard to Bobbin.

Of course Polly could not adopt the girl in the conventional sense. It would have been impossible to have her travel about with her or to have kept her constantly with her. And even if it had been possible this was not what Bobbin needed. Fortunately for Polly, Richard Hunt's ideas on the subject were far more sensible than her own. Between them it was decided that Bobbin should travel east with Miss O'Neill and her maid and spend Christmas at the big Webster farm. Mollie had written she would be glad to have her. Then later Bobbin was to see Sylvia Wharton and be put into some school where she might learn to talk and perhaps acquire some useful occupation.

There was no difficulty in persuading the town authorities to permit the little girl to follow her new friend. Indeed, the child had always been a tremendous problem and they were more than glad to be rid of the burden. She seemed completely changed by Miss O'Neill's influence. She was far quieter and more tractable and had not run away in several weeks. Besides this she appeared to be learning all kinds of things in the most extraordinary fashion. However, her teacher explained this to Polly by saying that Bobbin had always been unusually clever, but that some wild streak in her nature had kept her from making any real effort until now.

Another peculiarity of the girl's which Polly remembered having seen an example of on the morning of their first meeting was that she had absolutely no sensation of physical fear. Either nothing hurt her very much or else she was indifferent to pain. For this reason it had always been impossible either to punish her or to make her aware of danger. The thought interested Polly, since she considered herself something of a coward. She wondered if some day she and Bobbin might not change places and the little girl be discovered taking care of her.

However, when the three women finally started east there was nothing unusual in the appearance of any one of them. For by this time Polly's protege was dressed like any other girl of her age with her hair neatly braided. There only remained her peculiar fashion of staring.

Richard Hunt saw the little party off. He expected to be in New York later in the winter and promised to write and inquire what had become of Bobbin. However, he did not promise to come to Woodford to see Miss O'Neill, although Polly more than once invited him.

CHAPTER XIII

"A LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE"

"BUT, my dearest sister, what is the matter with Betty? You were perfectly right, she isn't one bit like herself and neither is Anthony.

I don't even believe she was particularly glad to see me when I stopped over in Concord with her for a few days."

Polly O'Neill was in her sister Mollie's big, sunshiny living room in her splendid old farm-house near Sunrise Cabin. There was no specially handsome furniture in the room, perhaps nothing particularly beautiful in itself, yet Polly had just announced that it was the very homiest room in all the world and for that reason the nicest.

There were low book-shelves on two sides of the room, for though Mollie never read anything except at night when her husband read aloud to her, Billy Webster kept up with all the latest books, fiction, history, travel, besides subscribing to most of the magazines in the country.

Indeed, although he and Polly often quarreled good-naturedly, Polly was openly proud of her brother-in-law, who had turned out to be a more intelligent and capable man than she had ever expected.