What was it that Mrs. Blakeley so feared? Was it merely the unpleasant notoriety? One could not help the feeling that there was something more that she suspected, perhaps knew, but would not tell. Yet, apparently, it was aside from her desire to have her daughter restored to normal. She was at sea, herself, I felt.
"Poor dear mother!" murmured Cynthia, rejoining me in a few moments.
"She hardly knows just what it is she does want-except that we want
Virginia well again."
We had not long to wait for Craig. What I had told him over the telephone had been quite enough to arouse his curiosity.
Both Mrs. Blakeley and Cynthia met him, at first a little fearfully, but quickly reassured by his manner, as well as my promise to see that nothing appeared in the Star which would be distasteful.
"Oh, if some one could only bring back our little girl!" cried Mrs. Blakeley, with suppressed emotion, leading the way with her daughter up-stairs.
It was only for a moment that I could see Craig alone to explain the impressions I had received, but it was enough.
"I'm glad you called me," he whispered. "There is something queer."
We followed them up to the dainty bedroom in flowered enamel where Virginia Blakeley lay, and it was then for the first time that we saw her. Kennedy drew a chair up beside the little white bed and went to work almost as though he had been a physician himself.
Partly from what I observed myself and partly from what he told me afterward, I shall try to describe the peculiar condition in which she was.
She lay there lethargic, scarcely breathing. Once she had been a tall, slender, fair girl, with a sort of wild grace. Now she seemed to be completely altered. I could not help thinking of the contrast between her looks now and the photograph in my pocket.