Mr. De Jarnette cut her short by demanding to see the room and the letters. They found every evidence of a hasty flight. Drawers had been left open with their contents tumbled about, clothes were lying on the floor, and the disordered bed showed that she had risen from it to go.
The two men read their letters hastily, but with widely different emotions. Mr. De Jarnette took the key enclosed with his and opened the drawer. The diamonds were there as she had said. He locked the drawer and handed the key to Judge Kirtley.
"As her legal adviser you will, of course, take charge of the place. These things should be put in safe keeping." Then, with a change of tone that was not pleasant. "I suppose it is hardly worth while to enquire of you where she has gone."
"I know no more, sir, about where she has gone than you do," the Judge answered, indignantly. "You can see for yourself," handing him Margaret's letter. Then he added, sternly, his face working with emotion. "I only know that she has become a homeless fugitive."
Richard De Jarnette read the letter, but his face did not soften. When he went from the house a few moments later it was to call a cab and go straight to the Detective Bureau. Mammy Cely stood looking after him as he went away.
"I wonder ef what I said about a white woman's chance to git off could a put that notion in Miss Margaret's head," she thought with some perturbation. Then defiantly, "Well, I don't keer ef it did! She got a heap mo' right to that chile than Marse Richard has. She done put a right smart of herself in him. An' Marse Richard ain't nothin' but his gyarjeen."
While the enginery for tracking her was thus being set in motion in Washington, Margaret, with her child in her arms, was speeding over the country hundreds of miles away, her face set toward the West. Every mile gave her an added sense of security. She was confident that Richard knew nothing of Mrs. Pennybacker's existence even, and was sure, too, that she had been able to get away without leaving a clue behind her at the station. It had been by a happy chance—was it chance?—that she had been able to cover her tracks there. She had gone directly to the lower waiting-room, hoping that she might find some way to get her ticket without presenting herself before the ticket agent. As she sat pondering this, a negro woman came in and sat down beside her. A sudden thought struck Margaret.
"Are you going on this next train?" she asked.
Yes, the woman said, she had been down in Virginia, and was going home. No'm, she didn't live in Washington. She lived in Maryland. She had been gone ten days—had a round-trip ticket.