With which Mr. Peddler shouldered his pack and trudged away, singing.
Old Peter let him out, and locked the gate after, and watched him out of sight. The peddler ceased his song the moment he was out of hearing, struck into the woods the instant he was out of sight, and flinging his pack on the gra.s.s, tore it open.
He had not long to search--Mrs. Sharpe"s tarnished old thimble was conspicuous enough among his glistening new ones. He fished it up, poked out the crumpled bit of paper, and slowly read it through. When read, he tore it into fifty morsels, and scattered them in a white shower all about. Then, with knitted brows and compressed lips, he sat and thought and thought for a full hour.
Meanwhile, matters went on smoothly behind him. Mrs. Sharpe, having finished the washing, and quite won the hearts of the two old women by her workmanlike manner, prepared her patient"s dinner, and brought it up.
On this occasion Mrs. Oleander undertook to accompany her. They found that refractory patient at her usual post--the window--gazing with dreamy, empty eyes over the ceaseless sea.
Susan Sharpe was strictly on her guard; her austere face never unbent, and Mollie took her cue once more.
"Here"s your dinner miss," she said, briefly; "is there anything I can do for you?"
"Nothing," replied Mollie, sullenly. "Only leave me alone. I never want to see either of your ugly old faces."
She turned her back upon them as she spoke, and never turned round until they had quitted the room.
"She"s a little imp, if there ever was a little imp yet," said Mrs.
Oleander, spitefully. "Does she always treat you like that?"
"Worse, mostly," said the imperturbable Susan; "but, la! I don"t mind; I"m used to "em."
"Do you think she"ll ever get better?"
"I think it"s very likely, ma"am," responded Mrs. Sharpe. "Your cross ones are always the likeliest. But, of course, I can"t say."
All that long afternoon Mollie was left quite alone. Mrs. Sharpe never came near her. This indifference on the part of the nurse quite disarmed Mrs. Oleander"s suspicions. If she had any wish to carry favor with her son"s patient, or help her to escape, surely she would not sit there in the kitchen, hemming her new silk handkerchief, all the while. That was what Susan did, however, and the weary, weary hours of the warm, sunny day wore blankly on the poor, lone Mollie.
The horrible stillness of the place seemed driving her mad. The endless monotony of the waves rolling up on the beach was growing unendurable.
The wild waste of sparkling-waters, ending in the low horizon line, wearied her eyes like the sands of the desert.
"I shall lose all the little reason I ever had if I am kept in this howling desolation much longer," she said, pressing her hands to her throbbing temples. "Oh! to shut out this mocking sunshine--to lose sight of this dreary waste, where no living thing comes! Oh, to get away from that horrible sea! If I could only die and end it all! But I live on, and live on where others would be happier and find death."
She sighed wearily, and looked across at the radiant western sky, gorgeous with the coming sunset.
"What did that woman mean? Did she mean anything? Yes, I am sure she did, and she has come here to help me to escape. Oh, Heaven have pity, and grant me freedom once more!"
She clasped her hands and sat there like one out of herself, while the moments wore on. Purple and gold made the western sky luminous with glory, and when the gorgeous flames were at their brightest, and the sea turning to a lake of blood-red fire, a little white boat, with a blue pennant flying, shot out of the red light and drifted close to the sh.o.r.e.
Mollie fixed her eyes on this tiny skiff--why, she could not have told.
Boats pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed often enough, but seldom so close to the sh.o.r.e. The beauty of the little bark attracted her, nestling as it did like a white dove on the water, and that fairy azure banner flying.
A solitary figure sat in the boat, his face turned her way; but the distance was too great for her to distinguish that face. A word in white letters she could see on the blue flag; but again the distance was too great for her to distinguish. She sat and watched and watched, until the opening of the door startled her. She turned round and saw Susan Sharpe--this time alone.
"Look there!" said Mollie, obeying a sudden impulse; "did you ever see anything so pretty?"
The nurse looked--bent her brows and looked again. Her face flushed--she caught her breath.
"Who is the man?" she asked, hurriedly, lowly.
"I don"t know," in the same breathless way. "He is watching here--but the distance is so great. Oh, nurse--"
She did not finish the sentence, but with hands clasped and lips parted, stood looking imploringly in the woman"s face.
"Wait a minute," said Mrs. Susan Sharpe; "there is no one on the watch this time, thank the Lord! Mrs. Oleander"s down with the toothache."
She left the room--was absent in her own two or three minutes--then returned with a pocket telescope in her hand.
"Try this," she said, quietly; "it"s small, but it"s powerful."
She put it in the girl"s hand. Mollie turned eagerly to the window--the boat and the man were near enough now. The word on the blue flag was Hope; the face of the man was still toward her, true as the needle to the north star. With the first look she recognized it. A low cry of amaze, and she dropped the gla.s.s, and stood all trembling with the sudden joyful shock.
For it was the face she had sighed for, day-time and night time--it was the man she loved. It was Hugh Ingelow.
CHAPTER XXI.
MRS. SHARPE DOES HER DUTY.
"You know that man, miss?" Mrs. Sharpe said, ineffably calm, stooping to pick up the gla.s.s.
Mollie turned to her with eyes wild and wide.
"I know him--yes. And you--Oh, for pity"s sake, say you know him, too!"
"How on earth can I say so until I"ve seen him?" said Mrs. Sharpe, poising her gla.s.s and clapping her eye to it, one hand over the other, after the fashion of the s.e.x.
She took a long look.
"Well?" Mollie panted.
Mrs. Susan Sharpe turned to her with a singular smile--a smile that made luminous the sallow face and glorified the green spectacles.
Just then the stairs creaked under a cautious, ascending tread.
"It"s Sally," said Mrs. Sharpe, not moving a muscle. "Eat your supper, and keep your eyes off the window if she comes in. Keep up heart, and think of the word on the blue banner--hope."
She turned away and abruptly opened the door as she spoke. There stood old Sally, with the eyes of a watching cat.
"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed the ancient handmaiden of Mrs. Oleander, very much discomposed by this abrupt proceeding. "How you do startle a body with your quick ways! Is Mrs. Oleander in here?"
"No," said Susan. "How could Mrs. Oleander be here when I left her, five minutes ago, half crazy with toothache?"
"Well, she left the kitchen after you, and came up, and I thought she might have dropped in to see the young woman," fibbed Sally. "How is she?"
"Suppose you drop in and see for yourself," responded the nurse, provoked into being pert to her elders. "Miss Dane, here"s a visitor for you."