Yet this poignant thought smote Lorna Nicholet"s mind: Where was Ralph at this very moment? If he had remained outside in that leaky catboat, surely he had come to grief. Even large vessels must make plenty of searoom in such a gale as this, and the _Gullwing_ surely was not a seaworthy craft.
She staggered to the door of the lighthouse and flung it open. Tobias Ba.s.sett was puttering about the stove. There was a smell of scorched toast in the air and the eggs he was trying to poach were being cooked to rags in a saucepan of furiously boiling water.
"My soul and body, Lorny! I sartainly be glad to see you. I thought mebbe you wouldn"t get over, it"s such a gale."
He did not notice her agitation, for his attention was fixed upon the maltreated eggs.
"I could cook once for a crew of haddockers good enough; but none of them was invalids. An egg is the loosest thing! I vum! how d"ye make "em stay together, Lorny?"
But the almost breathless girl had that on her mind that precluded her taking any interest in culinary puzzles. She leaned against the door she had closed behind her, and gasped:
"What about Ralph? Have you heard anything more? Do you know if he is safe?"
"Why, I cal"late he is," the lightkeeper rejoined slowly, looking at her now with attention. "I don"t know just why he put to sea out of Peehawket Cove "stead o" going to New Bedford to jine the _Nelly G._--"
"To join the _Nelly G._?" repeated the young woman. "What for?"
"Going to the Banks, I cal"late. He let it be known that he was waiting outside o" Cape Fisher for the _Nelly G._ to come along."
"He is running away, then!" cried Lorna.
"What do you mean?" said Tobias, forgetting the eggs entirely. "You ain"t got no reason, Lorny, to think so bad of Ralph. He didn"t have nothing to do with that bank robbery-nossir!"
"You cannot prove that, Tobias Ba.s.sett," she cried wildly. "You-you don"t know all-all that might have tempted him. And he being without money."
"Oh, sugar!" muttered the worried lightkeeper, reddening like a schoolboy caught in a peccadillo. Then: "I tell you there ain"t no reason. He ain"t poor."
"Why, Tobias Ba.s.sett! if Professor Endicott has lost all his money--"
"But he ain"t! It"s all torn foolishness. I-I just told you I"d _heard_ "twas so, Lorny. And I did hear it. You know how gossip goes in Clinkerport. Them story-mongers has had Henry Endicott ruined financially because of his inventions a score of times."
"But you told me--"
"Oh, sugar! I didn"t have no business to tell you such a thing. I never ought to have said it," stammered the lightkeeper. "I was figgerin" that the matter with you young folks-you and Ralph-was that you both had too much money. If you was poor I cal"lated you"d begin to have pity for each other and, as the feller said, "pity is akin to love.""
"Tobias Ba.s.sett, you deliberately deceived me? Ralph Endicott is not poor at all?"
Her face was suddenly aflame. Her eyes sparkled with rage. She stamped her foot. Tobias had no difficulty in keeping a straight face now. In truth he could not have called up a grin to save his life.
"That"s just what I done, Lorna," he confessed. "I cal"late I trimmed my sails purt" close to the truth and no mistake. Didn"t just foresee this difficulty, that"s a fact. But you disabuse your mind right now of the idea of Ralph Endicott being anything different from what he"s always been-as straight as a main stick and as clean as a whistle."
"But that penknife you found-and his address book?" she gasped.
"I ain"t trying to explain them. I don"t have to-just like I told that detective feller. I give it as my opinion that somebody is trying to tie something on Ralph. But no evidence they could show me would make me believe he was a bank burglar-nossir!"
Suddenly Lorna shrieked and ran at him. The old lightkeeper skipped out of her path with surprising agility.
"Aw-now-Lorny!" he gasped, "don"t be too hard on a fellow."
"Tobias Ba.s.sett! Those eggs!"
"Oh, sugar! They be a mess, now, ain"t they?" And he chuckled.
CHAPTER XXIV
UNDERSTANDING
It is admitted that those eggs saved Tobias Ba.s.sett from feeling the full weight of the young woman"s wrath. And that is as well. For the eggs were by this time absolutely useless for any other purpose. One cannot poach eggs for twenty minutes and p.r.o.nounce them edible.
"And this toast! What a black mess!" scolded Lorna. "The tea must have been boiling half an hour, too. Tobias Ba.s.sett, would you serve such a meal as that to your poor, sick sister?"
"Oh, sugar! I tell you I ain"t no fancy cook, Lorny. I-I guess I"ll go up and fill the lamp. Zeke ain"t going to be with us to-day. My, my!
hear that wind, will ye?"
He was glad to get out of the kitchen. That young woman, he opined, was some spitfire! But he chuckled hugely as he clumped up the stairs.
"I dunno whether my matchmaking is so tarnal bad, after all," he reflected. "She was scare"t Ralph was in trouble because she does care for him-just as sure as aigs is aigs."
Perhaps, too, it was better for Lorna that she had to give her attention just then to the preparation of a more dainty repast for the invalid than Tobias could have furnished.
"Poor Miss Heppy!" she sighed.
Her thoughts reverted again to Ralph. So, he was not poor. He did not deserve the pity she had been wasting on him. Or was it wasted?
The fact that he had possibly not even the reason of poverty for entering into that scheme to rob the Clinkerport Bank did not, after all, clear him of suspicion. Lorna could not-as Tobias Ba.s.sett did-flout the evidence of the address book and the penknife. The atmosphere was not immediately cleared of doubt.
The young woman did not know much about judicial procedure or the laws governing circ.u.mstantial evidence; but she was quite sure that Ralph Endicott would have to explain away the discoveries at the bank that pointed so directly to his partic.i.p.ation in the burglary.
And the curious thing he had done in leaving town! How explain that mystery?
He had evidently shipped his trunk and taken the train himself for New Bedford; yet he had returned to Clinkerport during the evening. At daybreak he was walking the railroad track at Peehawket Cove. How had he got there from Clinkerport?
His putting to sea with the avowed intention of hailing the banker _Nelly G._ capped the mystery. Why had he not gone on with his baggage to New Bedford and boarded the fishing schooner there?
"And why? And why? And why?" murmured Lorna at length. "I might ask myself these questions from now till doomsday and be none the wiser."
She shook her head sadly as she prepared Miss Heppy"s tray. These puzzling queries were not all-nor the greatest-that troubled Lorna Nicholet.
The young woman confessed in secret that more than curiosity inspired her interest in Ralph"s a.s.sociation with Cora Devine. Why should her name and address have been in his notebook if he had not a close acquaintance with her?
From the very first time she had heard of the girl (and Conny Degger had mentioned her slurringly in connection with Ralph"s name more than a year before) Lorna had felt secret jealousy. But never until now would she acknowledge it.
This phase of the mystery angered her. It was that which had caused her more than anything else to doubt Ralph"s honesty and good intentions.
So she still wondered if he were not really in trouble through the Devine girl and if this fact were not behind his strange actions in leaving home. Even if he had no part in the bank burglary (and of course he had not) Lorna could not absolve him of possible disgrace.