The girl quickly replaced the books and then stood deep in thought. What could she do? What should she do? She knew that the gentle bookseller had taken the rare volume merely to try to save the life of the one dearest to him. When he returned with the package the girl heard herself asking:
“But you, if your Marlitta went to the home country, would you not be very lonely?”
There was infinite sadness in the faded eyes and yet, too, there was something else, a light from the soul that true sacrifice brings.
“Ah, that I also might go,” he said; then with a gesture that included all of the small dark shop, he added, “but these old books are all I have and they do not sell.”
At that moment Roberta recalled the name of Lionel Van Loon, who, as Miss Peerwinkle had assured her, would pay one thousand dollars for the rare book and its mate. For a thoughtful moment the girl gazed at the lilac, then decided to tell the little old man all that she knew.
At first she regretted this decision when she saw the frightened expression in his gentle, child-like face, but she hastened to assure him that she only wanted to help him, and so she was asking him to send the stolen book back to the antique shop by mail.
When this had been done, Roberta, returning from the corner post box, found the old man gazing sadly at another volume which the girl instantly knew was the prized mate of the one she had just mailed.
“It’s no use without the other,” the bookseller told her, “and Mr. Queerwitz wouldn’t pay what it’s worth. He never does. He crowds the poor man to the wall and then crushes him.”
“I have a plan,” the girl told him. “Will you trust me with this book for a little while?”
Trust her? Who would not? For reply the old man held his treasure toward her. “Heaven bless you,” was all that he said.