Chapter 5

JUDGE TRENT'S STUDY

Dunham took care not to see Miss Lacey again until their train was nearing its destination. Then as he approached the seat where she gazed out the car window he observed that her eyes bore traces of tears.

She gave a nervous start as she recognized him.

"Oh, there you are. I've been afraid you missed the train. I'm very glad you've come, for I'm going straight to Judge Trent's office with you, Mr. Dunham."

"Oh, are you?" responded the young man dubiously. He seemed to see his employer's warning glance. "I rather think Judge Trent will have gone home. It's pretty late."

"Very well," returned Miss Lacey decisively, "then we go on to his house. This is no time to stand on ceremony. Every moment counts."

Whatever was in her mind her companion saw that she had worked herself to a pitch of excitement which made a railroad train no fitting environment for its expression; and to avoid further conversation he moved to the door and stood looking through the glass, meditating upon the approaching interview.

The station reached, Miss Lacey waited while Dunham telephoned to the office. There was no reply.

"The judge has evidently gone home," he said, returning to anxious Miss Martha.

"Then, as I told you," she answered, with firmness, "I am going to his house."

She had turned this possibility over in her mind several times. The long spring day was bright. Neighbors would observe her and comment upon her action, and she was not indifferent to this.

It did not occur to Dunham that she might consider the present situation an ordeal, but he was certain of Judge Trent's frame of mind, and he felt it incumbent upon him to do what he could.

"Shan't I put you on the car for home, Miss Lacey?" he asked persuasively, "and bring Judge Trent to see you?"

"It would be very nice if you could," she returned briefly, "but you couldn't."

"Oh, I assure you,"--began John smoothly.

Miss Lacey emitted a sort of impatient groan. "Don't talk," she exclaimed brusquely. "You don't know anything about it. He'll go on shirking just the way he's begun if I give him the chance. Isn't that the car coming? Oh, no, it isn't!"

"Probably you'd rather see him alone," suggested John, seizing upon a sudden hope. "Being so essentially a family matter and--eh--don't you think?"

"No, I don't think!" returned Miss Lacey. "If I'd had my way it _would_ have been a family matter. Calvin and I ought to have attended to it entirely alone; but he _would_ drag you into it--yes, I know it's very uncomfortable for you, but you _are_ in, and I need you for a witness and to back me up, and you must come, Mr. Dunham; there's the car now."

John yielded to the inevitable. He remembered grimly one item of his memoranda. "Follow Miss Lacey's lead."

Whatever of humor was in the situation was in abeyance. He had an irritating consciousness that what should have been the problem of these people had been shifted upon himself in a manner most unfair of Fortune. The desolate face that he had left haunted his thoughts; and the girl's pride and obstinacy in binding him to secrecy made the coming interview awkward.

Judge Trent, all unsuspicious, was sitting in his study. He had slipped on the dressing-gown with the indistinguishable pattern, and the rusty slippers that his soul loved. His silk hat formed a shadow for his eyes, and his big table was covered with a riot of books and papers.

At the moment chosen by his visitors for their entrance, the down-trodden heels were also resting on the table as the judge leaned back luxuriously in his desk chair and read the Boston papers.

Miss Lacey declined to allow Hannah to announce their visit.

"He might get out some back way," she declared to Dunham in a nervous undertone. She had outraged the proprieties by coming, as she read in the disapproving puckers around the old housekeeper's mouth. She was not going now to have the name without the game.

The library door opened.

Judge Trent looked up vaguely, then frowningly, then brought down his feet with a start.

"Good-evening," said Dunham; "we have come back."

Unexpected as was the sight of Miss Lacey in his sanctum, Judge Trent's astonishment was merged in the apprehension of what might be beyond. He looked over her shoulder with startled eyes as he arose.

Miss Martha understood. "No, indeed," she exclaimed, "she isn't here."

The host breathed a sigh of relief, and his sharp eyes began to question Dunham while he collected himself sufficiently to bring forward a chair for the lady.

"You honor me, Mar--Miss Lacey," he said.

"Thank you--Judge Trent," she returned, and giving his figure a comprehensive glance from top to toe, she touched her bonnet significantly as she sat down.

He did not observe the gesture. "Well," he said, resuming his seat and waving Dunham to another, "so you have come to tell me of your success. Very kind of you."

The speaker's endeavor to be courteous was offset by an impatient drumming of his fingers on the desk and the drawing together of his brows.

Martha ignored the signs. Let him drum. Let him scowl. "No," she returned impressively, "we have come to tell you of our failure."

Her manner was trying. It irritated her host still further. "How so?" he demanded.

She measured him with a severe gaze. "Calvin, you are wearing your hat," she announced frigidly.

"Eh? Oh! Pardon me." With hasty discomfiture the lawyer deposited his boon companion on the table.

"Oh! not in all that dust!" implored Miss Lacey.

He blew the vicinity vaguely. "Hannah doesn't do her duty by you!" she continued.

"Thank heaven, no," responded the judge devoutly.

Dunham was choking as quietly as possible by the mantelpiece, where he had remained standing despite his host's invitation.

"Say on, Mar--Miss Lacey," said the lawyer. "Do you mean you didn't find the girl? Make it short, please. Come to the point."

Miss Lacey's spirit arose. A human soul was involved, and no man, be he lawyer or lover, should browbeat or persuade her.

"Judge Trent," she began emphatically, fixing him with eyes which he but now perceived were swollen, "don't think to hurry me. I've come here on serious business. Men call you an eminent lawyer, a brilliant man. Now we'll see if you are sufficiently able to save your only sister's only child from an awful future."

Miss Lacey paused with working lips. Judge Trent perceived that she was deeply moved, and not endeavoring to make the most of an enjoyable situation. He pushed up his spectacles and looked questioningly at Dunham.

"You wouldn't come," pursued Miss Martha accusingly; "you wouldn't help me."

"I sent Dunham with full power."

"What could he do?" retorted Miss Lacey, in grief. "A mere boy like him, and no relation. Of course, after I had made a complete mess of it, what was left for him to do when she turned us out, but to come back with me?"

"You told me to follow Miss Lacey's lead," stated Dunham.

"Your place was there, Calvin. You might have saved the day even after my blunder."

"Perhaps you will tell me what blunder."

"Why, she was in the parlor curtains, Sylvia was, when we went in," Martha's voice trembled, "and I don't suppose, to be fair, that she thought of eavesdropping."

"No," put in Dunham feelingly, "I've no doubt she was watching for you; and I can imagine how eager and--and different her face looked then." His reminiscent tone was earnest, and his employer regarded him with sudden sharpness.

"So she's pretty," he said dryly.

"Oh, indeed she is--or would be if she was painted up the way they do," groaned Miss Martha. "She's too pale--but that might have been all anger."

"No," said Dunham quickly, "she's had typhoid fever."

Miss Lacey stared at him. "How do you know that?" she demanded.

"Why--why--of course," stammered John, "her short curly hair meant that. Didn't you think of it at once?"

"That's an absurd conclusion," returned Miss Martha, while Judge Trent quietly regarded the young man's flushing countenance.

"But if it should be true, Calvin," continued the lady miserably, "she's not fit yet to go to work at anything! I haven't told you yet. I talked right out to Mr. Dunham in that parlor about our not wanting her, you and I; and how we wished she'd stayed West. Oh, I've gone over it dozens of times since, and it keeps growing worse. Every word I said was true, and it was perfectly compatible with our intention to help her all the time; but she couldn't realize that, and I was just sort of explaining to Mr. Dunham your coolness in the matter by telling him how miserable Sam made Laura when the girl jumped out of those curtains like a--like a perfect fury, didn't she, Mr. Dunham?"

He nodded. "She seemed at a white heat with righteous indignation," he agreed.

Miss Martha took up the tale.

"Then she began to score us all, Calvin, and perhaps _you_ could have fixed it, but she simply froze me and my apologies; and then that child positively told us to go. I tried to stand my ground, and Mr. Dunham came out with your good sensible offer to send her to the Young Women's Christian Association, and I tried my best to persuade her to let me take her over there; but she laughed us to scorn, or smiled scorn, anyway; but I would not leave her until she told me what she was going to do--and what do you think it is, that your niece, Judge Trent's niece, proposes to do? She proposes to go on the stage," finished Miss Martha, in a hollow voice,--"to go on the stage and marry an actor; an actor named Nat!"

"Fat and middle-aged and mediocre," added Dunham.

Miss Lacey turned on him quickly. "Sylvia didn't say a word about his being fat and middle-aged!" she declared severely. "Are you presuming to make fun of this situation, Mr. Dunham?"

Judge Trent's keen gaze again noted the crimsoning ears of his assistant.

"Why--why, of course I wouldn't do that, Miss Lacey," blurted out the young man. "Didn't you notice what she said about his being her father's friend? What else could he be but middle-aged, and probably fat?"

"Well, we don't need to call on our imagination for anything," said Miss Martha coldly. "The facts are sufficient." She turned back to Judge Trent.

"So there's that young creature, Calvin, our own flesh and blood, alone in that rattle-te-banging city, without money for all we know, going to pin her faith to an actor man, and each of us with our homes, closed against her, as she feels, and you know we _did_ feel so, too, Calvin; and when I put myself in her place and remember the things she heard me say, I don't blame her for refusing our advice and help. She's young and high-strung, and oh, I've made such a mess of it, and,--and,--_say_ something, Calvin Trent!" Miss Lacey made the addition so explosively that the judge jumped. "Say you'll send some of your detectives to keep watch of her--quick--to-morrow--before she has a chance to get away from that hotel and get lost to us!"

Martha suddenly raised her clasped hands to her face, and burying her eyes in her handkerchief, wept miserably.

Judge Trent cleared his throat, and Dunham stirred and felt his knowledge weigh upon him guiltily.

"Don't get nervous, Martha," returned the lawyer. "Did you think I kept a brace of detectives in the back yard? I'm sorry about this. I'm"--

Miss Lacey emerged from the handkerchief as suddenly as she had entered it. "Oh, the mistake I made--the minute I saw you wouldn't do your part in this--the mistake I made not to ask Thinkright. I never thought of him; but it came to me on the cars that he would have been the right one. I suppose you'd have consented easily enough that Sylvia should go to the farm; and now--Oh, Mr. Dunham, I can't forgive you for putting that typhoid fever idea into my head, but if she did have"--

"A farm?" interrupted Dunham quickly, with an interest not lost upon his employer. "A farm would have been just the thing. Where is it, Judge Trent?"

"It's a little place I have in Maine. A cousin of mine runs it for me. So you think, Martha, that I'm below criticism in this whole matter, do you? That's a rather bright thought of yours about Thinkright."

"But it comes too late," returned Martha excitedly. "How do you know that Sylvia won't take the night train for the West right off to join that horrible Nat?"

"Then you think she has money?"

"I don't know. I only know she spurned the idea of any help from us."

"Wouldn't take a cent, eh?" rejoined Judge Trent. He turned toward Dunham. "I'll take that twenty-five then, Boy. It's pay-day for Hannah."

Dunham started from his leaning posture by the mantelpiece, and the lawyer watched his embarrassed countenance as he began a search through his pockets. He succeeded in extracting bills from two.

"I've only eight dollars here, Judge," he said at last, avoiding the other man's eyes.

"H'm. You and Miss Lacey must have painted the town," remarked Judge Trent, accepting the money. "Had a good appetite for dinner in spite of your troubles, hadn't you, Martha?"

"We didn't have luncheon together," returned Miss Martha, indignant at her friend's flippancy. "Do you suppose I cared whether I ever ate again or not?"

"The boy deserted you, did he? Didn't I tell you to take care of Miss Lacey?"

Dunham caught Judge Trent's eye for a second, and looked away. "_I_ think I took care of her," he replied coldly.

"Of course you did," said Miss Martha impatiently. "He had business to attend to. Now perhaps you'll choose some other time for joking, Calvin Trent, and tell me what you propose to do while valuable minutes are flying."

The judge drummed thoughtfully now on his desk. "That was a bright idea of yours concerning Thinkright," he remarked musingly.

"Then make it worth something!" responded Miss Lacey. His deliberate manner was driving her to frenzy. "Send a telegram if you can't send a detective. Say, 'News to your advantage coming,' or something like that. Anything to keep her there while we send for Thinkright."

"Send for him, eh?" mused the judge aloud.

"Why, of course!" responded Martha, in the very throes of impatience. "She wouldn't come with me, would she? She certainly wouldn't come with _you_!" The speaker brought out the last pronoun with a vicious satisfaction.

"Too bad of you to blacken me to her like that," remarked the judge. "I sent, as I supposed, an entirely capable representative. John admitted that he could carry off the affair with flying colors. How about that hand you had tied behind you, Boy?"

Dunham changed his position. "It was a very strange and hard situation, Judge Trent," he replied stiffly. "Most unexpected and uncomfortable all around."

"Then I may assume that you untied the hand?"

The young man did not reply. His indignation at his employer's imperturbability was becoming as pronounced as Miss Lacey's.

"I ought to have gone," continued Judge Trent. "Really I didn't suppose that a fellow recommended as an expert by such high authority as himself could be so invertebrate. You actually came away just because the girl told you to. Why, a novice could have done that."

Dunham regarded the little man with a stern displeasure which entertained the judge highly. Then John turned toward Miss Lacey: "Just where is this farm you speak of?"

"It's in Casco Bay. You take the train from Portland and then drive."

"And this man with the strange name?" pursued Dunham.

"Oh, it isn't his name, but nobody thinks of calling him anything else. He's Judge Trent's cousin, Jacob Johnson, and he lives on this farm winter and summer. He's a good soul, and he was cousin to Sylvia's mother, too, of course, and he"--

"Casco Bay. I have friends who go there in the summer." Dunham's manner grew purposeful.

Judge Trent rubbed his chin the wrong way. "I _could_ send a detective, Martha," he said thoughtfully. "I don't keep them in the back yard, but I usually have one around the office. I could shadow the girl."

Miss Lacey took hope. This met her longings. "If we only surely knew where she is!" she responded acutely.

"Yes, if we only did," the judge replied equably. "Where is she, Dunham?"

The young man flushed at the question.

"I can't tell you," he answered, after a moment's pause.

"Of course he can't," exclaimed Martha. "How queer you act, Calvin. _Do_ you intend to do anything, after all?" Tears sprang to her eyes and overflowed, but she paid no attention to them as she gazed distractedly at the exasperating lawyer.

Judge Trent's manner changed. He even smiled into the tearful countenance, and as she had suddenly risen he rose too.

"Yes, Martha," he answered, "I expect to see something done about it right away. The fat actor shan't get Laura's little girl this time."

Miss Lacey regarded the shrewd face in the intervals of wiping her eyes. "You'll telegraph to Sylvia, and send another message to Thinkright to come right here. Of course we can't be sure that Sylvia will get it, though--and there's all Thinkright's traveling expenses." The speaker's wet eyes looked appealing.

"Dunham's going to tell us where Sylvia is," returned the judge quietly. He paused, and Martha looked bewildered by this persistence. She turned toward John questioningly.

"I can't," replied Dunham again.

Judge Trent shrugged his shabby shoulders. "Oh, well, I suppose you can telegraph for us, then."

John swallowed, and meeting the lawyer's eyes, realized that he might as well save circumlocution.

"Well--yes."

"Of all things!" exclaimed Martha, with a start. "What do you mean?"

The judge hooked his thumbs in his armholes, regarding Dunham quizzically. "How about Jacob Johnson, Esquire, alias Thinkright. Do you suppose if I sent to him to shake the hayseed out of his hair and come on here you might unburden yourself to him somewhat?"

"Look here, Judge Trent," said Dunham, with exasperation, "perhaps you think I've had a pleasant day."

The lawyer approached the speaker and patted his big arm. "Could you, John, could you, do you think?"

"Yes, confound you!"

"Then we're fixed, Martha," said Judge Trent calmly. "You're all right, Dunham. You didn't overrate yourself at all."

"But I don't understand," exclaimed Martha tremulously, looking from one to the other.

Judge Trent opened the door for her ceremoniously.

"The intricate workings of the law, Martha, are difficult of explanation; but, after all, what do you care if the net result proves to be the arrival of your niece at the Mill Farm in a few days."

"Of your niece, Calvin," returned Miss Lacey, moving to the door, followed by Dunham, whose brow was lowering. "Don't think of coming with me, Mr. Dunham," she added, turning to him. "It is still fully light--and," ingratiatingly, "did you say you were going to telegraph Sylvia?"

"Yes."

"What shall he say, Calvin?"

"I should trust his judgment before my own," returned the lawyer. "Here's your eight dollars, Boy, and you're a trump."

John took the money without smiling; but he was glad to know about the farm.

Miss Martha boarded her car with a heart that was questioning but beginning to hope, and her mind was busy piecing together the evidence.

Mr. Dunham had left her for hours. He had been unable to return Judge Trent's money. He knew where Sylvia was.

Her misery gradually abated, and before she reached her gate she began to wonder if her bonnet had been on straight during the recent interview.