A Modern Madonna

by Caroline Abbot Stanley

The morning after they got back to Mackinac Margaret invited Mr. Harcourt to take a walk with her, and for almost the first time since he had known her she left Philip behind. Bess looked at them a little wonderingly when they went out, and still more so when they returned, for Margaret's face showed traces of tears and John Harcourt was unusually serious.

She had led the way to the fort steps and on the top landing where so many confidences have been shared, she told him her story. She had agreed with Mrs. Pennybacker the night before that the time had come now when he should be told. It seemed almost his right. She had told it very simply, not striving after effect; but the pathos of that story was in the situation, not in any words that might be used to depict it. Harcourt was strongly moved by what he heard.

As they neared the hotel on their return she said to him, "I am known here only as Mrs. Osborne. Perhaps you'd better continue to call me so."

"Let me call you Margaret," he begged. "I cannot bear to call you by a false name and I do not dare to use your true one." And she consented, for she felt that her confidence, far more than anything that he could call her, had set the seal upon their friendship.

After this he fell into the habit of looking out for her, of going to the boats when they came in and haunting the hotels. True, Smeltzer had told him he was on his way to Chicago, but he had not implicit confidence in that gentleman's word. But though he kept up a close surreptitious watch, no Smeltzer appeared.

It was perhaps a week after this that the party with the exception of Mrs. Pennybacker started off for a two days' trip up to the "Soo," as the interesting little town of Sault Sainte Marie, with its rapids and its great ship canal, is called.

They went off in high spirits, and a little later Mrs. Pennybacker saw their handkerchiefs waving to her from the little steamer, John A. Paxton. Indeed, Margaret had seemed like another person after learning that Smeltzer was on his way to Chicago. That proved to her that he was not looking for her, or that he had given up the search in this part of the country at any rate. There was probably no safer place for them anywhere now than right here.

The boat was almost ready to start when they reached it, and they lost no time in securing good places on the landward side of the stern where they could see all that was to be seen of the receding island. This took them away from the dock side, to Philip's great distress, and Margaret said at last,

"Go over to that side where you can watch them if you want to." Philip joyfully obeyed, and from the deck looked down with a child's interest on the moving life below. This was immensely more interesting to him than any view of land or sea could be.

He was not alone in the feeling. A man below who was evidently not a dock hand stood idly scanning the people on deck. A little child with long curls and a girl's hat and dress leaned over the railing. The man had formed the habit of noticing children, a very pleasant habit in any one, but somewhat unusual in a man of his type.