"Ef de spi'it move you chil' you gotta go," she admitted, greatly persuaded.

"But, Serena, even if my mother wants me to go, she wouldn't want me to take you away and break up my father's home. That would be dreadful. What would happen to the house? Ike would get into all sorts of mischief."

Serena gave thoughtful heed to the catastrophe which her departure would bring down upon the house of Dale.

"I am not going to stay away from you forever, Serena," Virginia continued, as she made a sorry attempt to smile through her tear stained eyes. "You know that I wouldn't desert you. Promise me to take good care of Daddy while I am gone, Serena," pleaded the girl. "Nothing must happen to him. He must not be disturbed or made uncomfortable."

"Why ah gwine wor'y 'bout him fo'?" demanded the old negress, obstinately.

"My mother loved him, Serena, and so do I. Won't you take care of him for us?"

This plea weakened her stand. "Ah promises to do de bes' ah knows how fo' a w'ile but ef yo'all stays too long ah gwine pack ma duds an'

come whar you is. Yas'm."

Virginia awakened the next morning with a bad headache. Serena busied herself around her mistress and finally persuaded her to take a long walk. The brisk exercise in the fresh air refreshed the girl, and she decided to go to the hospital and see Joe Curtis for the last time before she left South Ridgefield.

In the hall of the inst.i.tution she met Dr. Jackson.

"You should have seen my patients this morning," he told her. "Those infants are a gay lot. They cried so loud that they gave me a headache.

None of that fretful weeping with which they serenaded me last week.

That trip up the river helped those kids wonderfully, and, with the cool weather we are having now, some of those youngsters are going to see snow fly who never would have done so if it hadn't been for the voyage of the _Nancy Jane_."

Miss Knight came up and slipped an arm about Virginia's waist. "Tell the doctor and his babies good bye. He will talk a week about them if you'll stand and listen to him," she laughed, and as she drew the girl away, explained, "I have a surprise for you, dear."

"I can guess it. The room for the motorcyclists is ready."

"No, you're wrong. I'll have to show you." The nurse led the girl through a door which opened upon a small porch and pointed over the railing at the grounds which, lay on the side of the building. "There,"

she said proudly. "Look."

Virginia did as she was told. In the shade of a tree was Joe Curtis seated with outstretched leg in a roller chair. He answered their waving hands, and his face lighted up with a smile of pleasure which still remained when the girl descended the stairs and came to him.

"Isn't this fine!" she exclaimed, her delight at seeing him out of bed dwarfing her own anxieties. "It seems now as if you were getting better."

His eyes danced with pleasure at her coming. Yet, when he recognized, regardless of her efforts at concealment, that the gloomy influence, the shadow of which had cloaked her spirits at their last meeting, had not departed, his face clouded. He was conscious that his own disclosures, even though forced from him by her, might have had some part in causing her unhappiness and he endeavored to make amends by cheering her. "I asked Miss Knight to send for my motorcycle engine,"

he informed her. "I told her that I wanted to hitch it to this chair and get a little speed out of the thing. I promised her, 'Whither thou goest, Knightie, thither will I roll.'"

Virginia expressed interest in the nurse's reply.

"After bawling me out for calling her Knightie, she said that I was getting so attached to her that I spent my waking hours devising schemes to get hurt so as not to have to leave her."

His visitor's smile of appreciation comforted Joe greatly. He took a deep breath and flinched when his tender ribs rebelled. His eyes roamed over the gra.s.s and trees and he watched the fleecy clouds floating in the azure sky. He pursued his campaign of encouragement. "It is great to take a breath of air without the ether flavor. It's a wonderful old world anyhow," he announced, as he again viewed his surroundings with great complacency. "Gosh!" he went on, "I wish I may never again see the inside of a building. Me for a job in G.o.d's own sunshine."

In spite of the consolatory nature of Joe's remarks, a great loneliness had descended upon her. As she looked at him it seemed impossible that such a change could have come into her life since they two had planned for the hospital room. Then she had everything to make her happy. Now she was pledged to leave her father, her home, the few friends of her childhood, to go to a relative who was almost a stranger except in name. As she pictured the future, its loneliness frightened her. There came the temptation to bow to her father's will--to do anything to avoid that cheerless future.

Then, in a moment, she was filled with sweet and tender thoughts of her mother and the creed of unselfishness. Straightway her resolution was strengthened. She would follow the way of her mother and be true to the message, no matter what the cost. Surely, G.o.d would make her father understand. Until that time she must wait.

Joe's eyes returned to the girl at his side, when, lost in her own thoughts, she was unconscious of his scrutiny. The unhappiness which he caught in her face troubled him anew. "What makes you so sad, little girl?" he demanded uneasily.

"Nothing," she maintained, with a smile so forced that it pathetically denied the truth of the statement.

"There is something wrong, I know," he worried. "Am I in any way to blame?"

She shook her head violently and then told him, "I am going away."

"How long will you be gone?" He could not watch her averted face; but something told him that this was no ordinary trip.

"I can't say, Joe. Perhaps always."

As he watched the soft curls at the nape of her neck, the thought came to him that only owls and prairie dogs find lodgment in the same hole with a rattlesnake; whereupon the youth ceased to question and announced as a fact of noteworthy interest, "So long as n.o.body is dead, there is always a way to mend things."

There was a suspicion of moisture in her eyes when she turned to him and said, "Joe Curtis, you are certainly a cheerful somebody."

"Why shouldn't I be? I might have been killed in the accident and I wasn't. Now I'm nearly well." Into his optimism came tenderness, as he whispered, "Best of all, I met you."

"Was it worth it?" She was moody for the moment.

"You bet your life," he exclaimed. "Aren't you glad that you met me?"

Her eyes answered him.

After a moment, he went on. "Will you tell me where you are going, Virginia?"

"I am going to Maine. To Old Rock."

"Old Rock, Maine!" he shouted in surprise.

"Yes. Why not?"

"It is near the home of my mother. The place is so small that it seems strange that, with all of the rest of the world to go to, you should be going there."

Virginia arose from the bench and came over by his chair. "Good bye, Joe," she said, very softly. "I hope that you will soon be well." A sad little face looked down at him. "Please, forgive me for hurting you.

I am so sorry." Her lips trembled.

"Forget it," he said roughly; but there was that in his face which contradicted his tone. "I ran into you."

"We can't agree, can we?" she said thoughtfully, and her voice broke as she continued, "I want to ask a favor of you, Joe."

"Sure." He eyed her expectantly.

"Will you see that the room--is nicely arranged?"

"You bet I will."

"When I am gone there will be no one to care--but you." She fought back the tears and put up a brave front. "Good bye, Joe."

"Wait a minute," he commanded.

She reached for his hand and repeated, very sweetly, very softly, "Good bye, Joe." She moved away a few steps; but turned back to cry very tenderly, "Good bye, Joe."