"I had learned to make lace, and my friends thought I could sell it, so I began to make zat my trade. I thought I could save enough to go back to my father, and the beloved island--perhaps to free him."
"How did you hope to do that?" asked Cora.
"Because, in New York, I found one of his political party--himself an exile, who gave me what you call doc.u.ments--I know not ze term--"
"Evidence?" suggested Belle.
"Zat is it. Evidence! I have evidence, zat would free my father, if I could get it to him. But I fear to send it by mail, for it would be taken--captured by his enemies."
"It"s rather complicated--isn"t it?" suggested Cora.
"Yes, Senorita--more so even zan I am telling you. Of myself I know but little, save zat if I can get ze certain papairs to my father, he might go free. But how am I to go to Sea Horse Island, when I have not even money to buy me food to keep from starving? I ask you--how can I? And yet I should not trouble you wiz my troubles, Senoritas."
"Oh, but we want to help you!" declared Cora, warmly.
"Surely," added Belle. "Perhaps I had better speak to my father. He may know of someone on Sea Horse Island, where he is going to gather orchids."
"No, no, Senorita! If you please--not to speak yet!" broke in the Spanish girl suddenly. "It must be a secret--yet. I have enemies even here."
"Enemies?" echoed Cora.
"Yes. Zey followed me from New York. Listen, I haf not yet tell you all. I make ze lace in New York, but it so big a city--and so many lace sellers--not of my country. It is hard for me to make even a pittance. Some of my friends, zey say to go out in ze country. So I go. But I weary you--yes?" and with a quick, bird-like glance she asked the question.
"Oh, no, indeed!" answered Cora. Then the girl told of traveling out of New York City, into the surrounding towns, plying her humble calling. She made a bare living, that was all, dwelling in the cheapest places, and subsisting on the coa.r.s.est food in order to save her money for her father"s cause. Then came a sad day when she was robbed--in one of her, stopping places, of her little horde. She told of it with tears in her eyes.
"The poor girl!" murmured Bess, with an instinctive movement toward her pretty, silver purse.
Inez Ralcanto, for such she said was her name, her father being Senor Rafael Ralcanto, was heartbroken and well nigh discouraged at her loss. But to live she must continue, and so she did. She made barely enough to live on, by selling her laces, and since reaching Chelton the day-before, she had not sold a penny"s worth. Her money was exhausted, and she was nearly on the verge of fainting when she applied at the Kimball home. Cora"s mother had seemed interested in the lace, which really was beautifully worked, and while showing it on the porch, the girl had overheard the mention of her home island.
The rest is known to the reader.
"And so I am so silly as to faint!" said Inez, with a little tinkling laugh. "But I faint in good hands--I am so grateful to you!" she went on, warmly, her olive checks flushing.
"And you want to go to Sea Horse Island?" asked Belle.
"I want--Oh! so much, Senorita. But I know it is a vain hope. But you are good and kind. If you could take zese papairs wiz you--and manage to get zem to my father--he could tell you how to help him.
For it is all politics--he had committed no--what you call crime--not a soul has he wronged. Oh, my poor father!"
"And these papers?" asked Cora. ""What are they?"
"I know not, Senorita. I am not versed in such zings. A fellow patriot of my father gave them to me."
"Have you them with you?" asked Bess.
The girl started up in bed, and clutched at her breast. A wild look came over her face.
"I had zem in New York--I bring zem away wiz me. Zat man--he is ze enemy of my father and his party. He know I have zem, and he try to entrap me. But I am too--what you call foxy, for him! I slip through his fingernails. Ze papairs--in my valise--Oh, where is it?
I--when I faint--I have it at my feet--"
"It was on the porch!" exclaimed Mrs. Kimball. "I forgot all about it in the excitement. It was full of lace--Oh, if some one has taken it!"
"And my papairs--zat could free my father!" cried the girl.
A shout came from the front of the house.
"That"s Walter"s voice!" exclaimed Cora, starting up.
"Here, drop that satchel!" came the call.
The girls swept to the window in time to see a small man running down the drive, closely pursued by Walter Pennington. And, as the man fled, he dropped a valise from which trailed a length of lace. The girl, Inez, caught a reflection of the scene in a mirror of the bedroom.
"Zat is him--ze mysterious man!" she cried.
"Oh, if he has taken my papairs!" and she seemed about to leap from the bed.
CHAPTER VII
NEW PLANS
"You mustn"t do that!" cried Cora. "Hold her, girls!"
"But ze man--my papairs!" fairly screamed the Spanish visitor.
"He has nothing--Walter is after him--he doesn"t seem to have taken anything," said Belle, soothingly, as Mrs. Kimball pressed back on the pillow the frail form of the eager girl. Inez struggled for a moment, and then lay quiet.
But she murmured, over and over again:
"Oh, if he has--if he has--my father--he may never see ze outside of ze prison again!"
"We will help you," said Cora"s mother, softly. "If there has been a robbery, the authorities shall be notified. I will have one of the girls inquire. You say Walter is down there, Belle?"
"Yes, and a man is running off down the road. I"ll go see what it all means."
"I wish you would, please."
The eager gaze of Inez followed Belle as she left the room. The little excitement had proved rather good, than otherwise, for the patient, for there was a glow and flush to her dusky cheeks and her eyes had lost that dull, hopeless look of combined hunger and fear.
Quiet now reigned in the little chamber where the lace seller had been given such a haven of rest.
"What"s it all about, Wally?" asked Belle, as she encountered the chum of Cora"s brother, who was coming up the side steps bearing a black valise, from which streamed lengths of lace.
"Some enterprising beggar tried to make off with this valise," he said. "I had come down from Jack"s room, and was sitting in the library, when I saw him sneak up on the porch, and try to get away with it. He dropped it like a hot potato when I sang out to him.
But whose is it? Doesn"t look like the one Cora uses when she goes off for a week-end, that is, unless you girls have taken to wearing more lace on your dresses than you used to."
"It belongs to the lace seller--Inez--you know, the one we spoke of,"
said Belle. "She"s here--in a sort of collapse from hunger. And she has told the strangest story--all about a political crime--her father in prison--secret papers and a mysterious man after them."