CHAPTER XVI
THE LUCKY PIECE
True to her promise, Constance was at the Lodge early next morning. Frank, a trifle pale and solemn, waited on the veranda steps. Yet he greeted her cheerfully enough, for the Circle of Industry, daily dwindling in numbers but still a quorum, was already in session, and Miss Carroway and the little woman in black had sharp eyes and ears. Constance went over to speak to this group. With Miss Carroway she shook hands.
Frank lingered by the steps, waiting for her, but instead of returning she disappeared into the Lodge and was gone several minutes.
"I wanted to see Miss Morrison," she exclaimed, in a voice loud enough for all to hear. "She did not seem very well last night. I find she is much better this morning."
Frank did not make any reply, or look at her. He could not at all comprehend. They set out in the old way, only they did not carry the basket and book of former days, nor did the group on the veranda call after them with warning and advice. But Miss Carroway looked over to the little woman in black with a smile of triumph. And Mrs. Kitcher grimly returned the look with another which may have meant "wait and see."
A wonderful September morning had followed the perfect September night. There was a smack of frost in the air, but now, with the flooding sunlight, the glow of early autumn and the odors of dying summer time, the world seemed filled with anodyne and glory. Frank and Constance followed the road a little way and then, just beyond the turn, the girl led off into a narrow wood trail to the right—the same they had followed that day when they had visited the Devil's Garden.
She did not pause for that now. She pushed ahead as one who knew her ground from old acquaintance, with that rapid swinging walk of hers which seemed always to make her a part of these mountains, and their uncertain barricaded trails. Frank followed behind, rarely speaking save to comment upon some unusual appearance in nature—wondering at her purpose in it all, realizing that they had never continued so far in this direction before.
They had gone something less than a mile, perhaps, when they heard the sound of tumbling water, and a few moments later were upon the banks of a broad stream that rushed and foamed between the bowlders. Frank said, quietly:
"This is like the stream where I caught the big trout—you remember?"