CHAPTER V
URSULA WRITES A LETTER
The Christmas rush came on the Higgledy Piggledies with such force that the fright about little Philip was soon banished from all their minds.
“I may have been mistaken about Miss Fitchet,” Ursula confessed. “That woman I saw may not have been she. I dread her so that I can’t help thinking about her. I may have fancied a resemblance.”
“So you may,” said Josie solemnly. “Anyhow you have not been worried by her and the chances are she will never turn up again, even if the person you saw was Miss Fitchet.”
With the help of Captain Lonsdale, Josie had come to the conclusion that the dreaded nurse had been in Dorfield, but for what purpose the detective put on the case had not been able to discover. At any rate she had left in a day or so and had not returned.
“Probably she was here just to satisfy the curiosity of herself and her employer,” Josie decided. “I hope she will stay away now.”
The girl detective said nothing to Ursula about the information gained by the police concerning Fitchet. It was meager and not very satisfying and if Ursula had begun to feel that she had been mistaken and had only fancied she had seen the woman, so much the better for Ursula. Certainly the trained nurse had a perfect right to visit Dorfield and even to go heavily veiled if she had a mind to.
Josie regretted, in a way, that Ursula had so entirely cut herself off from Louisville and her girlhood friends. She had, in a measure, flitted from her old home and left the situation in the hands of an unscrupulous man. No doubt he was making the most of the power he had thereby gained.
“Suppose letters for you come to Mr. Cheatham. What directions did you leave about forwarding them?” she asked Ursula.
“It would do no good to leave directions. Mr. Cheatham would see to it that nothing I want would ever reach me. There is no way to get satisfaction of my stepfather. I realized that and so I left. If I can just be allowed to keep my darlings with me and bring them up without his contaminating presence, that is all I ask,” said Ursula.