Josephine Stone drew back with a startled cry. She was staring into a wall mirror at the reflection of herself.
“To-morrow,” she heard his voice as from afar off. “To-morrow, she who until now has been known as J.C.X., takes living control of the affairs of the North Star. To-morrow, on her twenty-first birthday, she must, as the lawful heir to this property, bear with me while I give an account of my stewardship.”
She heard, as in a dream, the hall door beyond closing softly. When she turned Acey Smith was gone. But out in the night somewhere there arose a tortured cry—a smothered cry that died out in the encompassing sweep of the storm.
Mad, she conjectured. . . . Yes, Acey Smith was a madman. Yet, her intuition told her, his was the madness of abnormal genius with a fixed purpose—always misunderstood—a desperate visionary with the imagination and power of will to make his mad dreams come true.
She—she “the lawful heir to this property!” Her grandfather had been previously referred to by Acey Smith. Could it be—?
But in her perplexed, unnerved state, Josephine Stone did the womanly thing. She went to her room and had a hearty cry.
CHAPTER XXIV
IN WHICH A FOOL EXPERIMENTS
I
Setting out on his aërial trip over the Cup of Nannabijou did not prove so simple a matter as Hammond had at first conceived it would be. In the first place, he had to get permission from the department at Ottawa before the authorities at the Kam City armouries would even allow him to try out the plane. Though he despatched Inspector Little’s wire immediately after his arrival, it was Monday afternoon before a reply was forthcoming.
The next delay was in getting the machine in shape for the trip. For want of expert attention, the motors and accessories were wofully out of tune, and before he felt satisfied that they were in anything like efficient shape it was too late to make the trip Monday. On the short trial flights he made the engine still showed a disposition to sulk, but by careful handling he managed to keep it alive while in the air.