第9章

"Do you mean you don't believe me?" asked the girl, "or is it that you are merely brave?""Merely brave!" exclaimed the young man."Massachusetts is so far north for lions," he continued, "that I fancy what you saw was a grizzly bear.But I have my trusty electric torch with me, and if there is anything a bear cannot abide, it is to be pointed at by an electric torch.""Let us pretend," cried the girl, "that we are the babes in the wood, and that we are lost.""We don't have to pretend we're lost," said the man, "and as Iremember it, the babes came to a sad end.Didn't they die, and didn't the birds bury them with leaves?""Sam and Mr.Peabody can be the birds," suggested the girl.

"Sam and Peabody hopping around with leaves in their teeth would look silly," objected the man, "I doubt if I could keep from laughing.""Then," said the girl, "they can be the wicked robbers who came to kill the babes.""Very well," said the man with suspicious alacrity, "let us be babes.If I have to die," he went on heartily, "I would rather die with you than live with any one else."When he had spoken, although they were entirely alone in the world and quite near to each other, it was as though the girl could not hear him, even as though he had not spoken at all.

After a silence, the girl said: "Perhaps it would be better for us to go back to the car.""I won't do it again," begged the man.

"We will pretend," cried the girl, "that the car is a van and that we are gypsies, and we'll build a campfire, and I will tell your fortune.""You are the only woman who can," muttered the young man.

The girl still stood in her tracks.

"You said--" she began.

"I know," interrupted the man, "but you won't let me talk seriously, so I joke.But some day----""Oh, look!" cried the girl."There's Fred."She ran from him down the road.The young man followed her slowly, his fists deep in the pockets of the great-coat, and kicking at the unoffending leaves.

The chauffeur was peering through a double iron gate hung between square brick posts.The lower hinge of one gate was broken, and that gate lurched forward leaving an opening.By the light of the electric torch they could see the beginning of a driveway, rough and weed-grown, lined with trees of great age and bulk, and an unkempt lawn, strewn with bushes, and beyond, in an open place bare of trees and illuminated faintly by the stars, the shadow of a house, black, silent, and forbidding.

"That's it," whispered the chauffeur."I was here before.

The well is over there."

The young man gave a gasp of astonishment.

"Why," he protested, "this is the Carey place! I should say we WERE lost.We must have left the road an hour ago.

There's not another house within miles." But he made no movement to enter.Of all places!" he muttered.

"Well, then," urged the girl briskly, "if there's no other house, let's tap Mr.Carey's well and get on.""Do you know who he is?" asked the man.

The girl laughed."You don't need a letter of introduction to take a bucket of water, do you?" she said.

"It's Philip Carey's house.He lives here." He spoke in a whisper, and insistently, as though the information must carry some special significance.But the girl showed no sign of enlightenment."You remember the Carey boys?" he urged.

"They left Harvard the year I entered.They HAD to leave.

They were quite mad.All the Careys have been mad.The boys were queer even then, and awfully rich.Henry ran away with a girl from a shoe factory in Brockton and lives in Paris, and Philip was sent here.""Sent here?" repeated the girl.Unconsciously her voice also had sunk to a whisper.

"He has a doctor and a nurse and keepers, and they live here all the year round.When Fred said there were people hereabouts, I thought we might strike them for something to eat, or even to put us up for the night, but, Philip Carey! Ishouldn't fancy----"

"I should think not!" exclaimed the girl.

For, a minute the three stood silent, peering through the iron bars.

"And the worst of it is," went on the young man irritably, "he could give us such good things to eat.""It doesn't look it," said the girl.

"I know," continued the man in the same eager whisper.

"But--who was it was telling me? Some doctor I know who came down to see him.He said Carey does himself awfully well, has the house full of bully pictures, and the family plate, and wonderful collections--things he picked up in the East--gold ornaments, and jewels, and jade.""I shouldn't think," said the girl in the same hushed voice, "they would let him live so far from any neighbors with such things in the house.Suppose burglars----""Burglars! Burglars would never hear of this place.How could they?--Even his friends think it's just a private madhouse."The girl shivered and drew back from the gate.

Fred coughed apologetically.

"I'VE heard of it," he volunteered."There was a piece in the Sunday Post.It said he eats his dinner in a diamond crown, and all the walls is gold, and two monkeys wait on table with gold----""Nonsense!" said the man sharply."He eats like any one else and dresses like any one else.How far is the well from the house?""It's purty near," said the chauffeur.

"Pretty near the house, or pretty near here?""Just outside the kitchen; and it makes a creaky noise.""You mean you don't want to go?"

Fred's answer was unintelligible.

"You wait here with Miss Forbes," said the young man."And I'll get the water.""Yes, sir!" said Fred, quite distinctly.

"No, sir! " said Miss Forbes, with equal distinctness."I'm not going to be left here alone--with all these trees.I'm going with you.""There may be a dog," suggested the young man, "or, I was thinking if they heard me prowling about, they might take a shot--just for luck.Why don't you go back to the car with Fred?""Down that long road in the dark?" exclaimed the girl."Do you think I have no imagination?"The man in front, the girl close on his heels, and the boy with the buckets following, crawled through the broken gate, and moved cautiously up the gravel driveway.