Part 67

"Do; and won't you tell Ellen I will come down and see her this afternoon? Poor girl, she has been so terrified with the events of these last weeks that I have feared she would not stay. If I'm here, I feel sure she would remain."

"If Mrs. Googe will not heed your request, I do hope you will make it your mission work to induce Ellen to stay."

"Indeed, I will; I thought she might stay the more willingly if I were with her."

"I'm sure of it," Father Honore said heartily.

"Are you going in now?"

"Yes."

"Well, please tell Ellen that if Mrs. Googe wants me, she is to come up at once to tell me. Good morning."

She walked rapidly down the road beside the house. Father Honore turned to look after her. How many, many lives there were like that!--unselfish, sacrificing, loving, helpful, yet unknown, unthought of. He watched the slight figure, the shoulders bowed already a little, but the step still firm and light, till it passed from sight. Then he entered the kitchen and encountered Mrs. Caukins.

"I never was so glad to see any living soul as I am you, Father Honore," was her greeting; she looked up from the lemon she was squeezing; "I don't dare to leave her till she gets a regular nurse. It's enough to break your heart to see her lying there staring straight before her and not saying a word--not even to the doctor. I told the Colonel when he was here a little while ago that I couldn't stand it much longer; it's getting on my nerves--if she'd only say something, I don't care what!"

She paused in concocting the lemonade to wipe her eyes on a corner of her apron.

"Mrs. Caukins, I wish you would say to Mrs. Googe that I am here and would like to speak with her before I leave town this afternoon. You might say I expect to be away for a few days and it is necessary that I should see her now."

"You don't mean to say you're going to leave us right in the lurch, 'fore we know anything about Champney!--Why, what will the Colonel do without you? You've been his right hand man. He's all broken up; that one night's work nearly killed him, and he hasn't seemed himself since--"

Father Honore interrupted this flow of ejaculatory torrent.

"I've spoken to the Colonel about my going, Mrs. Caukins. He agrees with me that no harm can come of my leaving here for a few days just at this time."

"I'll tell her, Father Honore; I'm going up this minute with the lemonade; but it's ten to one she won't see you; she wouldn't see the rector last week--oh, dear me!" She groaned and left the room.

She was back again in a few minutes, her eyes wide with excitement.

"She says you can come up, Father Honore, and you'd better go up quick before she gets a chance to change her mind."

He went without a word. When Mrs. Caukins heard him on the stair and caught the sound of his rap on the door, she turned to Ellen and spoke emphatically, but with trembling lips:

"I don't believe the archangel Gabriel himself could look at you more comforting than Father Honore does; if he can't help her, the Lord himself can't, and I don't mean that for blasphemy either. Poor soul--poor soul"--she wiped the tears that were rolling down her cheeks,--"here I am the mother of eight children and never had to lose a night's sleep on account of their not doing right, and here's Aurora with her one and can't sleep nor eat for the shame and trouble he's brought on her and all of us--for I'm a Googe. Life seems sometimes to get topsy-turvy, and I for one can't make head nor tail of it. The Colonel's always talking about Nature's 'levelling up,' but I don't see any 'levelling'; seems to me as if she was turning everything up on edge pretty generally.--Give me that rice I saw in the pantry, Ellen; I'm going to make her a little broth; I've got a nice foreshoulder piece at home, and it will be just the thing."

Ellen, rejoicing in such talkative companionship, after the three weeks of dreadful silence in the house, did her bidding, at the same time taking occasion to ask some questions on her own part, among them one which set Mrs. Caukins speculating for a week: "Who do you suppose killed Rag?"

Aurora was in bed, but propped to a sitting position by pillows. When Father Honore entered she started forward.

"Have you heard anything?" Her voice was weak from physical exhaustion.

"No, Mrs. Googe--"

She sank back on the pillows; he drew a chair to the bedside.

"--But I have decided to go down to New York and search for myself. I have a feeling he is there, not in Maine or Canada; and I know that city from Washington Heights to the Battery."

"You think he'll be found?" She could scarcely articulate the words; some terror had her by the throat; her eyes showed deadly fear.

"Yes, I think he will."

"But she won't do anything--I--I went to her--"