“Why, yes. Bed isn’t so terrible as all that! You may read or knit, until Doctor Hanscom arrives and gives other orders, anyway. Kate will sit with you so that you won’t be lonely. Yes, indeed, you must go to bed.”
Elsie was very much distressed at this turn of affairs. Kate saw dismay in her face, and she easily guessed the reason. Of course, being tucked up in bed and getting the attention and care of an invalid would make running away to-day almost impossible. But there was no question of Miss Frazier’s being obeyed. She expected obedience and she got it.
When Elsie had left the room Miss Frazier forced herself to take up conversation lightly and naturally for the remainder of the meal, but Kate did not fail to notice that her fingers shook slightly as she lifted her toast and that her dark eyes were unusually bright. Evidently the “gentleman who will not give his name” had had some news of importance. Kate felt confident that that gentleman was the detective, Mr. O’Brien.
“I finished your book last night,” Miss Frazier was saying. “I understand your enthusiasm. It is literature and much more. The author must have deep and even esoteric wisdom. One wonders very much who and what he is, the author. But whoever he is, even if this book is all he has to show, he is a great man. Has it occurred to you, Kate, how much, how extraordinarily, like your mother, Hazel, the girl in the story, is? It might be a direct portrait.”
Kate laughed. “Oh, have you discovered that, too? Even Mother had to admit it—that in looks, anyway, Hazel was exactly herself when she was that age. But I say she is still like Hazel, old as she is!”
“Thirty-six isn’t exactly aged, you know. One might very well keep some remnants of looks even until then.” Aunt Katherine was smiling. “But it is a strange coincidence how a person of the imagination can so echo a person in life. I was fairly startled last night when I realized how vivid the resemblance was.”
But though Kate heard and replied to all her aunt’s remarks during that breakfast, her mind was most of the time on other matters, and if Miss Frazier could have known, Kate under her calm exterior was hiding a heart as perturbed as her own.
Kate was glad when Miss Frazier rose. She assured her that she was very well able to amuse herself at home this rainy day, and that she would do everything for Elsie that she could. Yes, she would see to it that she stayed in bed! Yes, she would read to her, if Elsie felt like listening. Yes, Aunt Katherine was not to worry. And so Miss Frazier departed, and Kate was left virtually in charge of the house, the responsibility for things quite hers.
Of course, Kate knew perfectly well that Elsie would not want her to sit with her, no need even to ask about that. And Kate must hurry to send her telegram. Beyond the portals of sleep she had decided, or possibly it had been decided for her, that the special delivery letter would not make things happen quickly enough. Katherine must be wired for. She was needed to-day. Kate had waked with this determination full-blown. But how could she risk leaving the house now to send the wire, with Elsie in the desperate mood that was so obvious? How could Kate be sure that Bertha would not help Elsie to run away in her absence? Bertha adored Elsie, and Kate herself had reason to know that when Elsie pleaded it was easier to do her wish than not. She realized, of course, that a telegram may be given over the telephone; but her inexperience and shyness made her doubt her ability in such a complicated procedure. Besides, the bill would be charged to Aunt Katherine in that case.
“I shall just have to chance it,” she decided. “Elsie needn’t know I am out of the house at all, and I can hurry.” She would run up to her room and get her cape and hat as quietly as possible. She would have to slip down into the kitchen then and borrow an umbrella from Julia.