"Come back, please, Virginia," wailed Joe.

She hesitated, battling with tears.

"Please, come back, Virginia. Remember, I am helpless. I can't come after you."

She retraced her steps. "What is it?" she asked, her averted gaze apparently interested in the street beyond the grounds.

"Perhaps this is not good bye."

She looked at him now with great interest.

He seized her hand and drew her closer to the chair, smiling up into her face, as he explained, "It may not be good bye for us, because--if I were quite sure that you wanted to see me--I might come up to Old Rock."

She smiled at him. It was as if storm clouds had broken and let the rays of the sun through. "Oh, Joe," she cried, "it would be lovely if you came up. Old Rock seems to be a dreadfully lonesome place."

"Old Rock lonesome!" he protested. "Not a bit of it, Virginia. There are lots of interesting things to do. We can take grand tramps." In his enthusiasm for his home town, Joe forgot his game leg. "Some evening, I'll take you down to the big granite bowlder, from which the town gets its name, on the sh.o.r.e of the pond. We can get on top of it and watch the moon come up over the tree covered hill on the other side until it makes a shimmering pathway across the water and turns the old white church on the hill into a castle of silver. I love to sit there and watch the lights of the village go out, one by one. It's lovely then. The only sounds are the song of the crickets, the distant tinkle of a sheep bell, the splash of a leaping ba.s.s or maybe the hooting of an old owl. It is a beautiful place, Virginia, and with you there it would be wonderful."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I THINK THAT I SHALL LOVE IT,' SHE SAID SOFTLY"]

She listened to his words, her eyes big with interest, and a new happiness struggling in her heart. "I think that I shall love it," she said softly, and, after a moment's hesitation, "How long--how soon will you be able to come, Joe?"

An attendant approached to take the injured motorcyclist back to the ward.

Virginia hastily withdrew her hand from Joe's grasp and immediately gave it back to him, when he cried, "Not good bye but until we meet in Old Rock."

As she watched the attendant wheel the injured man away and turned to leave the hospital grounds, the girl was wonderfully cheered, and her mind accepted Joe Curtis's picture of Old Rock by moonlight as conclusive evidence that this ancient village was not lonesome.

CHAPTER XVI

VIRGINIA MUST GO

Virginia sank limply into the parlor car seat. After a moment she raised herself and looked out through the wide window upon the busy platform of the South Ridgefield station. Serena and Ike waited by the car nervously, endeavoring to locate the position of their mistress by peering into the coach. The old negress was publicly weeping.

As they caught sight of the girl, the train started and with rapidly increasing speed moved down the platform. Ike grinned a cheerful farewell while Serena screamed her adieu, and, as if unable to bear the separation, started to waddle along with the train, frantically waving her black hands.

Virginia signaled back and shouted embarra.s.sed little good byes, subconsciously aware that they would be heard by no one except her traveling companions. As the two negroes were swept from her sight, a feeling of utter loneliness wrapped her in its gloomy folds. Pent up tears flooded her eyes, and so, through a mist, she saw at the end of the platform a man and woman, waving handkerchiefs from an automobile, who looked remarkably like Hezekiah Wilkins and Mrs. Henderson. Likewise, through a curtain of moisture, when the train crossed the bridge, she perceived the stranded _Nancy Jane_, symbolical of her own wrecked efforts.

As the roar of the train upon the bridge died away, the girl sank back again into her seat and succ.u.mbed completely to her grief. During those last few hours at home she had steeled herself not to display her feelings. She had met her father on the previous day and explained her plans quite as calmly as if she were about to take an ordinary vacation trip.

The decision of his daughter to leave him, based as it was upon the inspiration of her mother, dead these seventeen years, had left him strangely helpless. In his pa.s.sion he had thrust aside the cloak of idealism in which she had arrayed him and exposed his true character.

She had struck back, unwittingly selecting a weapon which had swept aside his momentary anger and left him shaken and perplexed at the edge of the abyss which had opened between them. Obadiah, too, had been unhappy in those hours. He loved Virginia with all the affection of which his nature was capable. There had been moments when he would have surrendered abjectly to his daughter on her own terms but for the grim obstinacy which obsessed him.

It may be that she intuitively appreciated his mental struggles, because, excepting only her determination to leave home, she treated him with the tenderest consideration. In his perplexity, Obadiah drifted for the moment and blindly followed the girl's lead, as if through her alone could come the solution of the problem which separated them. Their breakfast that morning had been a difficult ordeal as had been their leave taking. He had displayed no desire to accompany her to the train and had parted from her with a grim indifference which his troubled face belied.

Now, at least, there was relief in the luxury of a good cry; but after a time the tears ceased and a weary peace came. Resting her head against the back of her chair she gave herself up to thoughts of the few little happinesses which gleamed like bright stars in the darkness with which she was surrounded.

She thought of Joe Curtis and thrilled when she remembered the long hand clasp. His picture of Old Rock comforted her anew as she a.s.sured herself that such a place could not be lonely. She reviewed the few moments in which she had bidden farewell to Mrs. Henderson. She had dreaded Hennie's embarra.s.sing questions. But, strangely, Hennie was not inquisitive. She had broken away to rush into her kitchen crying loudly that something was burning. This belief, from certain remarks which had floated back, had irritated Carrie, her cook, exceedingly.

Returning, she had enveloped the girl in a wealth of motherly tenderness, so that in reality the visit had consisted of much sobbing upon the older woman's shoulder to an accompaniment of soothing endearments and a train of explosive exclamations from which little could be gathered.

Soon she began to think of her Aunt Kate and of the new home to which she was going. Little enough she knew. Once, shortly before the death of Elinor Dale, Mrs. Kate Baker had visited South Ridgefield. At the time, she had a baby daughter of Virginia's age and was mourning the death of her husband. For years there had been irregular correspondence; but, as far as Virginia was concerned, her father's sister and her cousin were merely names.

The day of tiresome travel slowly pa.s.sed. There were times when, in a wave of despair, Virginia pictured herself adrift on a sea of sadness, where all was dark and cheerless; but there were moments when sweet thoughts of her mother strengthened her and made her resolve to stand by her colors, no matter what the cost.

It was late that evening when the train arrived at Old Rock. The unusual excitement and the fatigue of traveling had brought on a persistent headache, so that it was a most forlorn and miserable Virginia who was helped down from the car. Hardly had her bag been dropped at her side when the train moved on. As the metal doors clanged shut, it seemed to the girl as if it were the sound of the gates of her old life closing against her. She gazed timidly about the station. It was very dark to this girl of the city--this child of the electric lights. The fear of the unknown seized her. Sick, frightened, every limb of her trembling, she hesitated helplessly.

A figure approached through the gloom, and the soft, cheery voice of a girl inquired, "Cousin Virginia?"

Virginia's throat was dry and husky. "Yes." Her answer was only a whisper. A frightened little sound, but it was all that she could make.

Now a hand seized her arm and she was led along the platform. They came under a station lamp, and again the voice spoke as they faced a tall, angular, plainly dressed woman. "Here she is, mother."

Virginia looked up into a face which made her gasp in astonishment. In the eyes, the mouth, the deep cut lines, was resemblance to her father but, oh, with what a difference. It was Obadiah sweetened by love and affection. The harshness, the obstinacy, the selfishness of him were memories here. In their place lay a gentle, motherly look beneath the soft, white hair and from the eyes beamed a tender welcome to the lonely girl.

As Virginia hesitated diffidently, the lamp overhead brought out the pallor and the pathos of her wan tired little face. With never a word but just a soft exclamation she sank into the outstretched arms of her aunt.

"You poor tired darling," whispered Aunt Kate. She fixed a look of great severity over Virginia's shoulder at her own daughter. "Helen,"

she cried, "do you expect visitors to carry their own baggage? Take Virginia's bag to the surrey." As Helen obediently departed, Aunt Kate gave her guest a motherly hug, meanwhile making strange noises in her throat. Releasing one arm with great care lest the girl be disturbed, she endeavored to wipe a tear from her wrinkled cheek with a finger.

"Come, child," she said sharply. "You must get to bed. How do you feel?" When she learned of the headache she commiserated with her niece.

"You poor child. Sleep is the best treatment for that."

A surrey drawn by a remarkably fat horse was waiting for them back of the station.

"Don't you feel well, Cousin Virginia?" inquired Helen from the front seat.

"It's only a headache, Cousin Helen."

There was sincere relief in Helen's voice as she replied, "I am so glad that it is nothing worse."

Virginia and her Aunt climbed into the back seat of the conveyance.

"Hush," cried Helen in a loud whisper. "Archimedes is asleep. It's a shame to disturb him. I haven't the heart to hit him," she giggled.

"Be careful and don't strike that horse cruelly, Helen," Aunt Kate warned her daughter, as if that maiden were habitually guilty of cruelty to animals.

Helen disregarded her mother's remark. "Archimedes is dreaming of corn and oats and hay and green pastures. He must dream of such things, as he never thinks of anything else," she laughed.

"Stop your nonsense, Helen. I have a sick girl here who should be in bed."

"I'm better already," protested Virginia.

"Get up, Arch," cried Helen.

Archimedes stood fast.