The air on the outside was warm and at the same time was softly and stilly humid. There was not a breath of wind, and in this motionless, tepid atmosphere the gardens exhaled moist earth-odors as if breathing out their strength in panting expectation of the rain. From the high places of the city one could see the bay, flat and oily, with its surrounding hills and its circular sweep of houses, a picture in shaded grays. The smoke, trailing lazily upward, was the palest tint in this study in monochrome, while the pall of the sky, leaden and lowering, was the darkest. A faint light diffused itself from the rim of sky, visible round the edges of the pall, and cast an unearthly yellowish gleam on people’s faces.
Mariposa walked rapidly downward from street to street. She kept a furtive lookout for the well-known figure in its long overcoat and high hat, but saw no one, and her troubled heart-beats began to moderate. The damp air on her face refreshed her. She had been keeping in the house too much of late, and did not realize that this was still further irritating her already jangled nerves. The angle of the building in which Mrs. Willers housed herself broke on her view just as the first sullen drops of rain began to spot the pavement—slow, reluctant drops, falling far apart.
The music lesson had hardly begun when the rain was lashing the window and pouring down the panes in fury. Darkness fell with it. The night seemed to drop on the city in an instant, coming with a whirling rush of wind and falling waters. The housewifely little Edna drew the curtains and lit the gas, saying as she settled back on her music-stool:
“You’d better stay to dinner with me, Mariposa. Mommer won’t be home till late because it’s Wednesday and the back part of the woman’s page goes to press.”
“Oh, I couldn’t stay to-night,” said Mariposa hurriedly, affrighted by the thought of the walk home alone at ten o’clock, which she had often before taken without a tremor; “I must go quite soon. I forgot it was the day when the back sheet goes to press. Go on, Edna, it will be like the middle of the night by the time we finish.”
This was indeed the case. When the lesson was over, the evening outside was shrouded in a midnight darkness to an accompaniment of roaring rain. It was a torrential downpour. The two girls, peering out into the street, could see by the blurred rays of the lamps a swimming highway, down which a car dashed at intervals, spattering the blackness with the broken lights of its windows. Despite the child’s urgings to remain, Mariposa insisted on going. She was well prepared for wet she said, folding her circular about her and removing the elastic band that held together her disreputable umbrella.
But she did not realize the force of the storm till she found herself in the street. By keeping in the lee of the houses on the right-hand side, she could escape the full fury of the wind, and she began slowly making her way upward.
She had gone some distance when the roll of music she carried slipped from under her arm and fell into water and darkness. She groped for it, clutched its saturated cover, and brought it up dripping. The music was of value to her, and she moved forward to where the light of an uncurtained window cut the darkness, revealing the top of a wall. Here she rested the roll and tried to wipe it dry with her handkerchief. Her face, down-bent and earnest, was distinctly visible in the shaft of light. A man, standing opposite, who had been patrolling these streets for the past hour, saw it, gave a smothered exclamation, and crossed the street. He was at her side before she saw him.
Several hours earlier Essex had been passing down a thoroughfare in that neighborhood, when he had met Benito, slowly wending his way homeward from school. The child recognized him and smiled, and with the smile, Essex recollected the face and saw that fate was still on his side.
Pressing a quarter into Benito’s readily extended palm, he had inquired if the boy knew where Miss Moreau was.