Exit Betty

by Grace Livingston Hill

Candace turned from the window with her lips set, and tiptoeing to the door, listened. Yes, it was Aileen who was coming lightly up the stairs, singing in a low tone. It was Aileen's evening out. That meant that Marie would be more than usually active on the upper floor. She must manage it before Aileen left and Marie was called upstairs, or there would be no opportunity to get away without Marie seeing her.

Hastily she gathered her silk dress, her cloak and her apoplectic hat into a bundle with her purse and her gloves, and tied them into an old apron, with the strings hanging free. Then stealthily opening the window, she dropped them out into the kitchen area below, close to the region of the ash cans. It was a risk, of course, but one must take some chances, and the servants would all be in the kitchen just now, laughing and talking. They would scarcely have heard it fall.

She listened a tense instant, then closed the window, and possessing herself of a few little things, gathered hastily about the room, which she could stuff in her pockets, she opened her door softly, closed it behind her, and trotted off down the stairs just as if she were going about her ordinary duty. Listening a minute outside the kitchen door she slipped stealthily down the cellar stairs, and tiptoed over to the area door where the ashman took out the ashes. Softly slipping the bolt she opened the door and drew in her bundle. Then standing within, she quickly slipped the black silk over her housemaid's gown, donned her coat and hat and gloves, and sallied forth. A moment more and she was in the next street with the consciousness that she "might have done the like any time sooner, if she'd wanted, in spite of that little spy-cat Marie."

"If I want to go back I'll just say I went after my insurance book," she chuckled to herself as she sped down the street in the direction of the hospital.

Arrived at the big building she asked to see the list of patients taken in on the day of Betty's wedding, and succeeded in getting a pretty accurate description of each one, sufficient at least to satisfy her that Betty was not among them. Then she asked a few more bold questions, and came away fully convinced that Betty had never been in that hospital.

By this time it was nine o'clock, and she meant to take the evening train for Boston, which left, she was sure, somewhere near midnight. She took a trolley to her old lodgings where she had been since Mrs. Stanhope had sent her away the first time, and hastily packed a small hand bag with a few necessities, made a few changes in her garments, then went to see a fellow lodger whom she knew well, and where she felt sure she could easily get a check cashed, for she had a tidy little bank account of her own, and was well known to be reliable.

Having procured the necessary funds, she made her way to the station and found that she had still an hour to spare before the Boston train left.

Settled down at last in the back seat of a common car, she made herself as comfortable as her surroundings would allow, and gave herself up to planning the campaign that was before her.

Canny Candace did not go at once to the office of the brothers, James and George McIntyre, though she looked them up in the telephone book the very first thing when the train arrived in Boston even before she had had a bite to eat, and her cup of tea which meant more to her than the "bite." She reasoned that they would be busy in the early hours and not be able to give her their undivided attention. She had not lived out all her life for nothing. She knew the ways of the world, and she had very strict ideas about the best ways of doing everything. So it happened that when she was at last shown into the office of the McIntyres, Warren Reyburn who had traveled to Boston on the sleeper of the same train that she had taken the night before, was just arising from an earnest conference with the two men. With her first glance, as the three emerged from the inner office, Candace saw that the two elder gentlemen were much disturbed and it flitted through her mind that she had come at an inopportune moment. Then her quick eye took in the younger man and her little alert head cocked to one side with a questioning attitude. Where had she seen him before? Candace had the kind of a mind that kept people and events card-indexed even to the minutest detail, and it didn't take many seconds for her to place Warren Reyburn back in the church at the wedding, standing against the wall with his arms folded. She had noticed him particularly because he was so courteous to a little old lady who came in too late to get a seat. She had studied him as he stood there, waiting for the wedding march, and she had thought how handsome he looked and how fine it would have been if her wee Betty had been getting a man like that in place of the weak-faced Bessemer Hutton. She had watched to see who he was with, and felt deep satisfaction when she noticed him lean over and speak to Mrs. Bryce Cochrane as if he belonged to her. He wasn't her husband, because she knew Mr. Cochrane, who had been a favorite with Mr. Stanhope and much at the house. This man might be Mrs. Cochrane's brother "or the likes," and she had pleased herself watching him till Betty arrived and took all her thoughts. So now she stood with her little round head in its hectic hat tilted interestedly to one side, watching, ears on the keen to catch any word, for all the world like a "bit brown sparrow" saucily perched on another man's window, where it really had no right to be.

At last one of the McIntyre's shook hands gravely with the younger man, and the other one attended him to the door, talking in low tones. The McIntyre thus set at liberty, turned questioningly toward the stranger, who was not slow in getting to her feet and coming forward.