Part 3

"I was a little afraid you might forget your promise. No, what I was really afraid of was that you wouldn't find a chance to steal away. You _did_ steal away, didn't you, ve-ry quietly?"

"I did. I sailed away, at any rate, and I didn't tell a soul where I was bound."

"I knew you were a reliable man."

"How is the sprained ankle? You don't seem to be noticeably crippled."

"Of course not. That's all well now--I've been resting in the hammock all day. But come into the house. Supper is ready, and Aunty Landis has the most delicious chocolate, with whipped cream."

She tripped ahead of him up the pathway and into the house, calling: "Aunty Landis! Uncle Landis! Here he is. Here's Mr. Bob White. He's ready for supper, I'm sure."

The long-suffering good wife met him in the living-room. "Good-evening, Mr.--ah----"

"My name is----"

"Bob White," interrupted the girl. "Please let it be Bob White. That _must_ be your name. Don't you like it?"

"Very much."

"Then that's what we'll call him, please, Aunty Landis. Yesterday you were Puddin' Tame, to-day you're Bob White, and all the time you're really somebody else. I'll have the fun of meeting a new man any moment I like."

Mrs. Landis received this remark with a look as nearly approaching to sternness as she was capable of. "Betty, you must behave. Remember, you ain't as much of a baby as the gentleman maybe takes you for."

The girl fell silent, and seated herself upon a chintz-covered sofa. Fessenden scanned her more closely than the dusk outside had permitted him to do.

Her hair was gathered in a shining braid that hung quite to her waist, a girlish and charming fashion. Her blue eyes watched him demurely from beneath a broad, low forehead. The sailor suit of yesterday had given place to a simple white frock--Fessenden noticed that it came fairly to her ankles, now discreetly slippered and stockinged.

At the moment of seating themselves at table, they were joined by Uncle Landis, a middle-aged farmer whose preternaturally-shining face and plastered hair, not to mention a silence unbroken throughout the meal, gave plain proof of recent rigorous social instruction on the part of his help-meet.

The memory of that supper has always been a delight to Fessenden. The omelet was all golden foam; the puffed potatoes a white-and-brown cloud. The spiced cantaloupe and brandied peaches reminded him of the wonderful concoctions his Grandmother Winthrop had made--she who would never allow any one but herself to wash the glass and silver.

The hot Maryland beaten biscuits were crusty to the smoking hearts of them, withstanding his teeth's assault just long enough to make their crumbling to fragments the more delicious. The chocolate, in blue china cups not too small, was served as the Spaniards serve it and as it ought to be served--of the consistency of molasses candy when poured into the pan.

And then came the creamy rice pudding for dessert, whereupon Fessenden won Mrs. Landis forever by asking for the receipt and gravely jotting it down in his notebook, in spite of Betty's laughing eyes.

Betty's talk flashed and sparkled to his sallies. She showed a self-possession remarkable in a farmer's daughter who was encountering a man of the world for what must have been the first time in her life, as he fancied. Once or twice he felt that she had led him on to talk of himself and to expand his own ideas to a degree unusual in him.

"Betty, you're a witch," he declared at last. "I've been clattering away here like a watchman's rattle. You can't be interested in all this stuff about my cart-tail speeches for honest city government."

"But I am interested, decidedly. I like to hear about men that do something--they're a novelty." Her frank smile warmed him. "I know there are enough worthless men in the world to make the useful ones count all the more. 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.' That's as true in Maryland as anywhere."

"You're a worldly-wise small person."

"Oh, I read and think a little, Mr. Bob White." She nodded her head at him until the blonde braid danced.

After supper Uncle Landis abruptly vanished. Aunty Landis lingered in the dining-room on the plea of clearing off the supper things--in point of fact, Fessenden saw her no more that night. Betty led the way to a couple of steamer-chairs at a corner of the porch.

The breeze had freshened a little, and he tucked her knitted scarf about her shoulders with a care not altogether fatherly.

"Thank you, Bob White. You're very kind."

"Who wouldn't be kind to you, Betty? Look there! Over the top of the hill. Even the stars are peeping out to see if you're comfortable."

She gave her little crowing laugh. "What a poet! I always think of Emerson's verse about the stars. Do you remember it?

"Over our heads are the maple buds, And over the maple buds is the moon; And over the moon are the starry studs That drop from the angel's shoon."

"Where did you learn Emerson?"

"I had a teacher who liked him."

"Did any one ever tell you that you talk as a prima donna ought to talk, but never does--'soft, gentle, and low'?"

"Is that a compliment?"

"Certainly. Perhaps you sing."

"I'll get my guitar."

She flashed into the house and back again. The starlight enabled him to see her indistinctly as she tightened the keys of a small guitar.

"I like this song," she explained. "It was written by Fessenden, you know."

"By whom?"

"Thomas Fessenden, _the_ Fessenden, the man who----"

"Oh, of course."

To hear himself thus referred to, to hear one of his own casual songs launched from the lips of a country girl in the splendor of a Maryland night, was a novel experience even for Fessenden. He realized with amusement that his identity was wholly unknown to Betty, that capricious young person not having allowed him as yet to mention his own name.

She sang, her eyes laughing upon him as her lips rounded to the whistle of the quail in the refrain.

"At morn when first the rosy gleam Of rising sun proclaimed the day, There reached me, through my last sweet dream, This oft-repeated lay: (Too sweet for cry, Too brief for song, 'Twas borne along The reddening sky)

_Bob White! Daylight, Bob White! Daylight!_"

"At eve, when first the fading glow Of setting sun foretold the night, The tender call came, soft and low, Across the dying light: (Too sweet for cry, Too brief for song, 'Twas but a long Contented sigh)

_Bob White! Good-night, Bob White! Good-night!_"

Fessenden applauded softly, and his young hostess smiled appreciation.

"Tell me about yourself, Bob White," she said. "Are you 'tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor'?"

"Betty, perhaps _you_ can tell _me_ something. I got away to you without letting any one at Sandywood know, by going for a sail in my sloop."

"A ve-ry good idea."

"Don't be too sure. After I'd gotten well off, one of the house-party--a girl--coolly appeared from the cabin. She'd been bound to come with me, you see."

"Why?"

"That's the problem. She was very mysterious, and persistent, no name! When we landed in Piney Cove, she insisted upon following me."

"Goodness me!"

"We had the most extraordinary time--I fastened her in the cabin by main force. I don't understand it at all. She said she knew I was coming to meet you, and seemed very much wrought up about it. Hold on! She didn't mention your name, but she said she knew who it was I had my appointment with."

"How could she guess?"

"We happened to be standing together when your little friend, Jimmy Jones, brought your note. She said this afternoon that she recognized the style of the envelope."

Betty's guitar slipped from her lap to the floor. "Bob White, Bob White!" she exclaimed. "What's her name?"

"Didn't I say? She's a Miss Yarnell--Miss Madge Yarnell, from Baltimore. Do you know anything about her?"

The girl stooped to rescue the guitar. Her warm cheek touched his as he, too, groped for it, and both recoiled a little consciously--Fessenden in amusement at his own confusion.

"Do you know about Miss Yarnell?" he repeated.

"I've heard her name. A girl--the woman who gave me that song--knows who she is. Isn't she the girl who tore down the flag?"

"Yes, that's the one. Can you imagine why she pursued me so? Do you suppose she really recognized your writing paper? And even if she did, what is it to her?"

She twanged a careless chord or two. "Oh, perhaps she was vexed because you didn't stay at the house-party," she suggested; "because you preferred White Cottage to Sandywood."

After a while he struck a match and looked at his watch. "Nine o'clock. I must be going. If I stay much longer, the Cresaps will be sending out their launch to tow me home. You know, I'm supposed to be becalmed out in the bay. I hate to go. I've had a bully time."

"Really?"

"Perfect. Betty, look here! I'm staying at Sandywood only until Tuesday, and to-day's Friday. H-i-n-t!"

She rose and made him an adorable curtsy. "Bob White, Esquire, I respectfully invite you to come to my picnic to-morrow."

"Will there be a picnic, really?"

"Yes--for you and me."

"Great! I'll come, and humbly thank you."

"Then you must be at the foot of the lane by the brook at ten o'clock to-morrow morning. And it's another secret, remember. Do you think you can get away?"

"I _will_ get away. Perhaps I can invent a business letter that will call me to Baltimore."

She clapped her hands. "Oh, I'll attend to that. You know Jimmy Jones is really the Sandywood Station telegraph boy, and he'll do anything for me."

"I don't doubt it. There's at least one other person in the same happy condition."

"Haven't you a friend in Baltimore who might possibly send you a telegram--somebody so real you could just show it to the Cresaps, and they'd believe it? What fun!"

He chuckled. "This is a real conspiracy. The only friend the Cresaps and I have in common is Danton."

"Who?"

"Charles Danton. D-a-n-t-o-n."

"I'll remember."

"All right. At ten o'clock to-morrow, at the foot of the lane. You'll meet me there, honest Injun, Betty?"

"Honest Injun! Hope I may die!"

She had followed him to the edge of the porch and stood looking down at him as he lingered a couple of steps below.

"Good-night, Betty."

Her hand slipped into his outstretched palm. "Good-night, Bob White."

"I've had a lovely time."

"So have I."

He had not released her hand, and now she leaned toward him until the great braid of her hair fell across her breast.

"Bob White, I'm rather sorry I was so--so violent yesterday, when you were carrying me and--and did what you did."

She was so close to him that he felt her hair brush his forehead. The blood was pounding in his ears, and his throat was parched. He lifted his left hand slowly to her neck to draw her lips to his. Then, all at once, he steadied himself.

"Oh, you little witch!" he said. "I swear I don't know whether you're an innocent or a demon. No, no, Betty! The next time I kiss you, you must ask me outright, not merely _look_ at me! Do you ask me?"

She snatched her hand away. "Certainly not. Never!"

"Good-night, then."

"Good-night, Bob White."

She stood motionless until he was lost in the darkness, then whistled softly:

She waited until the call was answered from the slope of the hill; then, laughing rather wistfully, she sought Aunty Landis.

VI

Fessenden joined the others at Sandywood while they were still lingering over coffee in the library. His belated appearance, casual and unconcerned as he endeavored to make it seem, was greeted with a storm of badinage.

"Oh, my prophetic soul! You were becalmed sure enough."

"Does the poor boy want a bite to eat?"

"We were just organizing a relief expedition for you, old man."

"What a lonely time you must have had of it, Mr. Fessenden!" This last thrust was from no less a person than Miss Yarnell. He gave her a broad smile in return.

He allowed the others to believe what they would, explaining only that he had been compelled to leave the _Will-o'-the-Wisp_ in Piney Cove. Cresap promised to send his man up to bring her back to the landing-stage.

"I'm afraid you'll find the cabin-door catch is broken," said Madge Yarnell in an undertone, as she halted near Fessenden on her way to bed.

"If I hadn't been sure you'd smashed through easily enough, I should have come back to the sloop and sailed away with you."

"With me?"

"Certainly--made you captive like an old buccaneer. Willy-nilly, I should have clapped you under hatches, and sailed for the Spanish Main."

Her brooding eyes dwelt long upon him. "That's very interesting." She struck her hands softly together. "It's worth thinking about. Thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Fessenden."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Of course you don't. You're only a man."

In the morning, although he was not down for breakfast until nine o'clock, he was ahead of any of the others. One of the servants handed him a telegram. He read it with amusement over Betty's cleverness.

THOMAS FESSENDEN, Sandywood, Polocoke County, Maryland.

Meet me Club one o'clock. Important personal matter. Want your advice. Don't fail me.

CHARLES DANTON.

He requested the butler to turn over the telegram to Mr. and Mrs. Cresap, and to explain to them that he would be back at Sandywood before dinner. On the plea that he vastly preferred a walk, he managed to evade the man's suggestion that the car be brought round to take him to Sandywood Station.

Precisely at ten o'clock he was cooling his heels on the stone wall at the foot of the lane.

In that shaded hollow the sun had not yet pierced to dry the dew from the wild myrtle. Now and then the clambering creepers rustled where a field-mouse ran shyly through them. An oriole flashed from a sycamore, like an orange tossed deftly skyward. Spring was a living presence--Fessenden was stirred by its exuberance as he had not been these ten years.

By and by a rattle of wheels came to his ears. Presently a serene gray mare hove in sight, escorting, rather than pulling, a low-swung landau with an ancient calash-top. So capacious was the hood that at first he could descry no one in its depths. Then the mare came to a condescending halt, and a laughing face leaned into view.

"Good-morning, Patience-on-a-Monument."

"Good-morning, Grief. Grief, that's the fluffiest hat I ever saw."

"Have you been waiting long?"

"Hours and hours."

"Then, come, get in. We're going driving 'over the hills and far away.'"

She clucked to her steed, and the old mare, disdainfully obedient, conveyed them straight through the brook--the water rising to the hub--and up the windings of a wood-road beyond.

"The first thing a man wants to know on a picnic," affirmed Betty sagely, "is whether or not there's enough to eat. There isn't, but there will be."

"I rest content. Betty, who taught you to dress like that?"

"Do you like me--my clothes, I mean?"

"I like both, profoundly."

She was all in white--fluffy hat, linen shirt-waist, duck skirt, and low shoes. Her hair was done into some sort of knot on her neck--Fessenden was rather weak at deciphering a girl's coiffure. Her eyes shone wonderfully clear, and her smiles were frequent but uncertain, as if she bubbled with jokes too ethereal to share even with him.

"Betty," he said, "do you mind my remarking that you look adorable to-day?"

"Only to-day?"

"Always, you witch! Betty, don't tell me that any mere district school made half of _you_."

"Why not?"

"Well, it sounds a bit impertinent of me, but your voice--your talk--your dress! And, above all, you have the air--ah----"

"Of a lady, Mr. Critic?"

"Exactly. One doesn't expect to find _l'air distingué_ in a farmer's daughter."

"A farmer's niece."

"Of course. Perhaps that makes all the difference. Do you mind my asking who your mother was, Betty?"

"My mother was related to the first families of Maryland."

He could hardly forbear a smile at the pride manifest in her tone. "I see. She has a right to be proud of her daughter."

"Really? Bob White, that's the very nicest thing you could say to me if you'd tried a hundred years. Mother died when I was quite a little girl."

Fessenden was silent. For a while, the girl guided the gray mare from wood-road to rambling lane, from lane to turnpike, and from turnpike back to lane. As they rounded a low hill, Fessenden felt the salt breath of the bay upon his face.

"Where are we bound?" he asked.

"To Jim George's. It's a sort of inn--a very rustic inn. He cooks delicious things. People come here for dinners from as far as Baltimore, but I think it's too early in the season yet for anybody to be here but us."

"I hope so with all my heart."

They ascended a sandy track through a little forest of pine, and emerged upon an open space. At the foot of a bluff the bay stretched to the horizon. On the forest side stood a log-cabin, amplified on all sides by a veranda of unbarked pine.

From this structure promptly hobbled a white-haired darky.

"Mawnin', lady. Mawnin', gemman, sah. A day o' glory fo' the time o' year. Yas, sah, yas, ma'am, a real day o' glory. Won't you 'light down, ma'am?"

"Of course we will, Jim George, and we want some of your best shad."

"Ah d'clar to gracious! Is that yo'all, Miss Betty? Good Lan'! it's been a coon's age since I seen yo' purty face round hyah. It does me proud to see a----"

"Shad and corn-pone, Jim George," she interrupted. "I want you to show this gentleman we can still cook in the South."

"Ah'll show him. Ah'll show him, Miss Betty. Rufe! Rufe! Come hyah and take Miss Betty's hoss."

A boy led the mare away, and Fessenden and the girl established themselves in a hammock under a solitary oak at the bluff's edge.

He drew a long breath of the salt air and smiled at his companion. "This is Paradise, and not even a serpent to mar it."

In an incredibly short time Jim George appeared, bearing a tray piled high with eatables, and proceeded to spread the cloth on a table under the oak.

"Miss Betty," he said, "and, gemman, sah, there's a shad-roe as _is_ a shad-roe. Jes' yo' eat it with all the buttah yo' kin spread on it. This hyah co'n-pone needs a _spoon_ for _it_. Them baked 'taters growed theirselfs right hyah in the patch behint the house. They's as sweet as honey. And hyah's some milk. Yo' 'member Jersey Molly, Miss Betty? Yas'm, this is _her_ milk. None o' yo' _pastorilized_ stuff neither--this is jes' plain _milk_."

"Betty," said Fessenden, when Jim George had left them to themselves, "allow me to drink your health in Jersey Molly wine."

She touched her tumbler laughingly to his. "Skoal! Bob White, do you know it was only the day before yesterday you picked me out of the brook?"

"I was just thinking of that. At any rate, we're better acquainted than people ordinarily are in months."

"In three days?"

"Certainly," he maintained.

"You're a very funny man."

"I'm perfectly serious."

"I was wondering why you should care to come on a picnic with me. I'm only a country girl, after all, and you--you're different."

"I care to come because _you_ are _you_, and that's plenty reason enough."

"Hum-m."

"Can you say as much?"

"I'm not sure."

"Cruel child!"

"I didn't say no--I only said I wasn't sure."

The afternoon slipped away, and at last they ordered their equipage for the homeward drive. Old Jim George bowed them off.

"Good-by, Miss Betty. Good-by, gemman, sah. Ah hope yo' bofe come hyah agin right soon--yas, indeedy, and I hope yo' come togedder, too. Yah ha!" He screened his mouth behind his hand and added in a stage whisper: "Miss Betty, that's a mighty fine gemman yo's got, he is so, mighty fine."

They pursued the even tenor of their way homeward. The early butterflies flicked the gray mare's nose. Blackbirds pilfered a meal from the plowed fields beside the road. Once a thrush--to Betty's infinite delight--perched on the dashboard and sang a hasty trill.

"Spring is lovely," declared Betty.

"Lovely," agreed Fessenden with enthusiasm, and did not feel guilty of a commonplace.

Into the calm of their content came the clatter of distant hoofs.

"There's some one riding down that crossroad there," said Betty. "A woman. Is she waving at us, do you think?"

They peered out from the calash-top, and made out a horsewoman galloping down a side-path toward them. Her whip was going on her horse's flank, and now and then she brandished it as if to signal the two in the landau.

Betty pulled up. "Let's see what she wants."

In another moment the horsewoman was near enough to bring an exclamation of recognition from Fessenden. "Hello! I believe it's Miss Yarnell."

"Miss Yarnell?"

"The girl who said she recognized the envelope you sent me the other day. Perhaps she wants to ask the way home."

Miss Yarnell rode out of the crossroad full tilt, and only checked her sorrel when his nose was within a foot of the gray mare's. Fessenden viewed this characteristic impetuosity with curiosity, which changed to amazement when his eyes fell upon her face. Her eyes were blazing, and her teeth were clenched.

She did not wait to be interrogated, but faced the calash-top.

"I've been looking for you!" she cried. "Come out here where we can talk." Her tones were not loud, but her voice was choked with passion, and she lifted her riding-whip as she spoke. "Come out! I want to have a talk with you."

The response was more prompt than she could have anticipated. Before she could carry out her evident purpose of forcing her uneasy horse to the very dashboard, Fessenden slipped from the landau, ducked under the mare's head, and, seizing the sorrel by the bit, forced him back.

"What's up, Miss Yarnell?" he said, with stern jocularity. "You mustn't ride into people's laps, you know."

"Oh, I don't want _you_," she said. "I want _her_." Again the silver-mounted whip was brandished toward the calash-top.

Betty's piquant face emerged from its depths. "Are you looking for me?" she asked very sweetly.

Miss Yarnell's arm fell. She stared at the childish face--at the wide-opened blue eyes and slender figure.

"O-oh!" Her voice was tremulous, all hint of violence gone from it. "_You!_ I thought it was--I thought it was some one else."

"At any rate, it isn't proper to threaten one with a whip," said Betty gravely.

"I--I know it. There!" Her arm swung up, and the whip spun a flashing arc through the air before falling into a field of ripening wheat. "The hateful thing!" She faced the girl again. "I'm sorry. I've been acting like a fool. I beg your pardon--and yours too, Mr. Fessenden."

She checked the horse she had already started to wheel, and appealed to Betty. "I _must_ ask you. I came after you because I thought you were--were some one else. I thought so because of that envelope Thursday."

"A Baltimore friend of mine happens to have lent me a box of her notepaper." There was impatience in Betty's explanation.

"O-oh, I see! But--please!--that telegram from Charlie to him"--she indicated Fessenden. "I supposed--some one--had sent that--to put me off the track."

"It wasn't sent from White Cottage."

"Then it was real?"

"I know nothing about it," returned the girl icily.

Miss Yarnell wheeled her horse. "It was real! And I've been wasting time--wasting time!" Going helter-skelter, she was out of sight before Fessenden had time to resume his seat in the carriage.