“Janet, my dear! Where is she?”
“Oh, not here—at Saratoga, or at New York. I thought she was coming with me, but when the steamer sailed she was not there, only there was a note pinned to my berth. I meant to have brought it, but it got lost somehow.”
“Where did you see her?”
“At the photographer’s at Saratoga. I should never have come if she had not helped me, but she said she knew you would take me home, and she wrote and took my passage and all. She said if I did not find you, Mr. Wakefield would know where you were, but I did so want to get home to you! Please, may I take off my things; I don’t want to be such a fright when Allen comes in.”
It was all very mysterious, but Elvira must be much altered indeed if her narrative did not come out in an utterly complicated and detached manner. She was altered certainly, for she clung most affectionately to Mother Carey and Barbara, when they took her upstairs. She had a little travelling-bag with her; the rest of her luggage would be sent from the station, she supposed, for she had taken no heed to it. She did so want to get home.
“I did feel so hungry for you, Mother Carey. Mother, Janet said you would forgive me, and I thought if you were ever so angry, it would be true, and that would be nicer than Lisette, and, indeed, it was not so much my doing as Lisette’s.”
Whatever “it” was, Mother Carey had no hesitation in replying that she had no doubt it was Lisette’s fault.
“You see,” continued Elvira, “I never meant anything but to plague Allen a little at first. You know he had always been so tiresome and jealous, and always teased me when I wanted any fun—at least I thought so, and I did want to have my swing before he called me engaged to him again. I told Jock so, but then Lisette and Lady Flora, and old Lady Clanmacnalty went on telling me that you knew the money was mine all the time, and that it was only an accident that it came out before I was married.”
“Oh, Elvira, you could not have thought anything so wicked,” cried Babie.
“They all went on so, and made so sure,” said Elvira, hanging her head, “and I never did know the real way the will was found till Janet told me. Babie, if you had heard Lady Clanmacnalty clear her throat when people talked about the will being found, you would have believed she knew better than anyone.”