“No; I fear she is dead, and that these were stolen from 409 the old nurse. Who is that yonder? Ah, yes,—Phœbe Donovan. Now I shall hear the truth.”
Forgetting her shawl, and unmindful of the fact that the sun was streaming full on her head and face, she hurried to meet the woman who was ascending the avenue, and very soon they entered the house.
A quarter of an hour elapsed ere Phœbe came out, and walked rapidly away; and, unwilling to prolong his suspense, Dr. Grey went in search of the governess.
He met her in the hall, and saw that she was equipped for a walk. Her cheeks were scarlet, her brown eyes all aglow with eager expectation, and her lips twitched, as she exclaimed,—
“Oh, doctor, I hope everything; for I learn that the pictures were found on the lawn at ‘Solitude,’ where Phœbe was once hired as cook; and she recognized the case as the same she had one day seen on a writing-desk in the parlor. The boy confessed that he picked it up from the grass, and, after taking out the contents, soaked the case in a bucket of salt-water. Phœbe says the pictures belong to Mrs. Gerome, the gray-headed woman who owns that place on the beach, and I am almost tempted to believe she is Elsie, who may have married again. At all events, I shall soon know where she obtained the portraits.”
“You are not going to ‘Solitude’?”
“Yes, immediately. I cannot rest till I have learned all. God grant I may not be mocked in my hopes.”
The unwonted excitement had kindled a strange beauty in the whilom passive face, and Dr. Grey could for the first time realize how lovely she must have been in the happy days of eld.
“Miss Dexter, Mrs. Gerome will not receive you. She sees no visitors, not even ministers of the gospel.”
“She must—she shall—admit me; for I will assure her that life and death hang upon it.”