“I’m going up to Mallaby House,” he said in answer to her inquiring look. “But you! What’s all this gaiety, mother?”
“I am going to hear an account of how you behaved yourself on the voyage, Code,” she said, attempting severity.
“By an eye-witness?” Visions of Ellinwood, painfully arrayed, danced in his head.
“Yes.”
“Um-m. Well, I won’t be home until late, then, because it’s a long story.”
“You rascal!” said his mother, and kissed him.
On the way to Mallaby House (it was up the old familiar path that he had raced down so recklessly the night of the great fire), he thought over the thing that his eyes had seen for an instant the night before in the jail.
Elsa loved him, he knew now, and she had always loved him. He cursed himself for a stupid fool in that it had taken him so long to find out, but he was relieved to know at last upon what footing to meet her. She was no longer a baffling and alluring 299 creature of a hundred chameleon moods; she was a lonely girl.
Martin, who had been his body-servant while aboard the mystery schooner, opened the door, and bowed with decided pleasure at seeing his temporary master. He ventured congratulations that Schofield was free of the law’s shadow.
“Mrs. Mallaby is up-stairs, sir,” he said, taking Code’s hat. “Just step into the drawing-room, sir, and I’ll call her.”