All this time Billie wondered where Marie-Jeanne was, but she never came and they have never seen her from that day to this. However, she has written to Billie several long happy letters. She and her mother had a little home on the bank of the river near Oxford, she said, and besides her household duties, she was studying history and French.
That night, after dinner, Beatrice and Billie walked arm in arm in the moonlit garden.
"Billie," began Beatrice, "uncle says that since you were cleverer than all the detectives and really found little Arthur, you have a right to know something, and he has given me permission to tell you."
"Is it about Telemac Kalisch?"
"I suppose you know him by that name. He is really Arthur"s great-grandfather, and the grandfather of Maddelina, my uncle"s second wife. But he is many more things besides and we are quite afraid of him, although uncle has met him and says he is charming."
"He is," said Billie, "but what is the mystery about him?"
"He is supposed to be at the head of a great secret society. It"s everywhere, all over the world, and it"s for poor people,-socialistic, uncle calls it,-but it has members in all cla.s.ses and it"s to establish peace. Of course, it"s not actually known that the society exists, and if it does, how far it goes and what it actually does. It"s only supposed. Uncle says that there is no telling who belongs, perhaps some of his own servants for all he knows. At any rate, Mr. Kalisch is a very marvelous old man. No one knows his age, but Uncle once heard he was very, very old, but that he doesn"t believe in age or in illness. He has all kinds of queer theories and he has friends in all cla.s.ses, princes and common people. He isn"t afraid of anything in the world. Uncle said long ago that His Grace, as we always used to call Uncle Max, had better be careful. Old Telemac loved his granddaughter, and he would certainly have an eye on little Arthur."
"It"s all very queer," said Billie, deeply interested in the history of the strange old man.
The two girls followed the walk leading to the other side of the ruined chapel, where stood the half-demolished tower, and Billie told Beatrice the dream she had had the night of the storm, and how she had heard the bell ring out once, probably as it fell.
"The queerest part of it all is," observed Beatrice, "that the old prophecy did come true in a way:
""If hatred turns to love before Trouble will not cross the door."
"Uncle and I thought of it, you may be sure. If Uncle Max had not repented when he did, he would surely have had concussion of the brain or some awful thing."
Billie smiled.
"Do you believe that?" she asked. "It was just a coincidence, of course."
"Call it whatever you like. It did come out just as the old rhyme said it would," answered Beatrice. "I could tell you queerer things than this that have happened to some of the old families in Ireland and England."
"But what made him repent, Beatrice?" asked Billie.
"Who can tell what makes such things happen? Perhaps he suddenly saw himself as he really was; or perhaps he had a vision. It has happened before in this family. They do say that the ancestor who built this old abbey was a wild and lawless character and he reformed and entered a monastery, and then he built the abbey as a monument of his repentance, I suppose."
"What would he think of it now, I wonder?" thought Billie.
It was growing late and the two girls turned back and presently joined their friends in the refectory.
Before the Motor Maids and Miss Campbell left Ireland, they received a call one morning from Feargus O"Connor, whose round, good-natured face now beamed with happiness. He and his family had been able to return to their old home, he said; his mother now had a deed to the place and there would never again be any disputes about the t.i.tle. He himself had been appointed First Officer on a merchant ship. Some day he would be Captain of the ship, but for the present he was well content to sail the high seas as First Officer.
Billie would have liked to clear up some of the mystery about Telemac Kalisch, but she hesitated to question Feargus. That the Duke of Kilkenty had been known as "Tweedledum" in that mysterious a.s.sociation, and that Feargus had been chosen to kidnap the little Lord Arthur and had refused, she was fairly certain. Like as not, he had not learned until later that old Telemac was the grandfather of the boy.
One more incident remains to be told before we close the history of the Motor Maids" travels in the British Isles. At a grand farewell dinner at Kilkenty Hall, His Grace, the Duke, made an appropriate speech of thanks and presented Billie with a beautiful enamelled brooch in the design of a wreath of roses, shamrocks and thistles intertwined.
So ended the strange drama into which the Motor Maids had been unwittingly drawn. It had, however, enabled them to see many sides of life; to touch the edge of a vast secret movement for universal peace; to see the miracle of hatred turned to love and wrong made right. The most unpleasant memories connected with their trip were softened by the happy ending they had somehow brought about.
When they journey abroad again, they will sail to the faraway land of j.a.pan, and then we may, if we will, join "THE MOTOR MAIDS IN FAIR j.a.pAN."
THE END.