"Dear Helen,—I have decided suddenly to go with the camping party to the mountains for a week or two; we leave early in the morning. I shall hope to find you still here when I return.
W. H."
He sealed this missive, threw it aside, and then began to study a railway guide. To a person going across to the mountains in a wagon, a knowledge of the latest time-tables was, of course, important.
The next morning, while her maid was coiling her fair hair, Mrs. Lorrington received the note, and bit her lips with vexation.
The hunting party drove over to the station soon after six, and waited there for the early train. Hosy sold them their tickets, and then came out to gain a little information in affable conversation. All the men save Heathcote were attired in the most extraordinary old clothes, and they wore among them an assortment of hats which might have won a prize in a collection. Hosy regarded them with wonder, but his sharp freckled face betrayed no sign. They were men, and he was above curiosity. He ate an apple reflectively, and took an inward inventory: "Hez clothes that I wouldn't be seen in, and sports 'em proud as you please. Hats like a pirate. The strangest set of fellers!"
As the branch road train, with a vast amount of self-important whistling, drew near the junction with the main line, Heathcote said carelessly that he thought he would run down to the city for a day or two, and join them later. There was hue and cry over this delinquency, but he paid his way to peace by promising to bring with him on his return a certain straw-packed basket, which, more than anything else, is a welcome sight to poor hard-worked hunters in a thirsty land. The wagons rolled away with their loads, and he was left to take the southern-bound express. He reached the city late in the evening, slept there, and early the next morning went out to Lancaster Station. When he stepped off the train, a boy and a red wagon were in waiting; nothing else save the green country.
"Does a French lady named Pitre live in this neighborhood?" he inquired of the boy, who was holding the old mare's head watchfully, as though, if not restrained, she would impetuously follow the receding train. This was the boy with whom Jeanne-Armande had had her memorable contest over Anne's fare. Here was his chance to make up from the pockets of this stranger—fair prey, since he was a friend of hers—the money lost on that field.
"Miss Peters lives not fur off. I can drive you there if you want ter go."
Heathcote took his seat in the wagon, and slowly as possible the boy drove onward, choosing the most roundabout course, and bringing the neighborhood matrons to their windows to see that wagon pass a second time with the same stranger in it, going no one knew where. At last, all the cross-roads being exhausted, the boy stopped before the closed half-house.