It was dusk. The key to the big house was safe in her pocketbook. She put on her little black hat with a widow’s ruche that, although it was so becoming, gave a pathetic touch to her sweet, pensive face.
The streets were almost deserted in the business section of town. As Mary Louise walked rapidly towards her old home, she saw two figures about half a block ahead of her, a man and a boy. They were walking slowly and the man had one hand on the boy’s shoulder while in the other he carried a cane with which he made tentative taps on the sidewalk.
“They must be my tenants,” she thought. “I wonder where I have seen them before. The man stoops over like an old man but he doesn’t really look so old. I am mighty sorry for him, but I won’t stop and claim them as tenants this evening.” She crossed the street and hurried on. Glancing over her shoulder when she got opposite to them she could see that the boy had noticed her and said something in a low tone to his father who straightened up and turned his blue goggles in her direction.
“They must know I’m their new landlord,” she said to herself. “I wonder how!”
The old home was very quiet and peaceful. She crept in the front gate and lingered for a moment on the porch. Then she walked down into the garden and stood for a moment in the very spot where, less than a year before, she had stood with Danny while the wedding ceremony was performed. Grandpa Jim had stood right here; and here was Irene in her chair, her face all aglow with love; and the bridesmaids had been there on that spot prettily grouped in their pastel-colored chiffon frocks; there had stood Hortense, the perfidious Hortense.
“Poor Hortense! How could she have been what she was? I wonder if she has known of my suffering and if she has been sorry for me,” she mused. “I have always felt sorry for her. She loved her Felix and must have suffered agonies untold when he was caught and imprisoned. Josie tells me he has escaped. I do hope they won’t catch him again and that somewhere he and his ‘Pet’ are together.” She smiled at the thought of Markle’s name for his wife.
Slowly she approached the house again and, fitting her key to the latch, opened the door and walked in. It was as she and Josie had left it. Everything was in perfect order. A soft sprinkling of dust on the floors and furniture showed up as she turned her flashlight here and there. The dusk outside had deepened and the house with its lowered shades and closed blinds was in oppressive darkness. The electric light, gas, and water had been turned off when she had vacated. Mary Louise thought the telephone service had been discontinued as well, for she was not aware of the fact that Chief Lonsdale and Josie had seen to it that the connection was still on in case the man watching the house should need it. Josie paid the bill each month, saying nothing to Mary Louise about it. She had told Mary Louise she would see to the telephone and the girl had thought no more about it.
Suddenly the gloom and silence of the house was cut by a sharp and prolonged ringing of the telephone bell.
“How strange!” Mary Louise darted back to the dining room where the telephone had always stood and quickly took down the receiver.
“Yes, this is Colonel Hathaway’s residence—Mrs. Dexter is at the ’phone—Long distance wants her—? Where?—What—long distance?”