“Miss Merriweather will be here very soon,” the man explained good-naturedly. “She wants you to go with her to the hospital.”
Jinnie’s mind flew to that one time she had visited Theodore’s sick bed. She would be glad to see Molly the Merry.
She had forgiven all the woman’s cruelty.
The long flights of stairs they mounted were dark and uncarpeted. Their footsteps made a hollow sound through the wide corridors, and there was no other sign of human life about the place. But still Jinnie followed the man in front of her, up and up, until she had counted five floors. Then he took a key from his pocket and put it in the lock, turning it with a click.
Jinnie waited until, stepping inside, he turned and smilingly bade her enter. There was so little natural suspicion in the girl’s heart that she never questioned the propriety, much less the safety, of coming into a strange place with an unknown man. Her dear one was ill. She was anxious to see him again, to help him if possible. She felt a little shy at the thought of seeing Miss Merriweather once more. The man led her to an inner room and suavely waved to a chair, asking her to be seated. Casting anxious eyes about the place, she obeyed.
“I’m going after Miss Merriweather now, if you’ll wait a few moments,” explained the stranger. “She wasn’t ready and asked me to bring you first. I think she’s preparing a surprise for Mr. King.” 283
Jinnie’s tender little heart warmed toward Molly the Merry. Just then she had untold gratitude for the woman who was allowing her to take Theodore something with her own hands. Oh, what joy!
She smiled back at the speaker as he moved toward the door. Then he left her, asking her politely to make herself at home until he returned.
Jinnie waited and waited until she thought she couldn’t possibly wait any longer. Peg would be worried, terribly worried, and little Bobbie wouldn’t eat his supper without her. But because of Miss Merriweather’s kindness and her own great desire to see her sweetheart, she must stay until the last moment. She grew tired, stiff with sitting, and the little clock on the mantel told her she’d been there over two hours. She got up and went to the window. The building stood high on a large wooded bluff overlooking a deep gorge. The landscape before her interested her exceedingly, and took her in fancy to the wilderness of Mottville. The busy birds fluttered to and fro, twittering sleepily to each other, and for a short time the watcher forgot her anxiety in the majesty of the scene.
Miles of hills and miles and miles of water stretched northward as far as her eyes could discern anything. The same water passed and repassed the old farmhouse, and for some time Jinnie tried to locate some familiar spot, off where the sky dipped to the lake. It wasn’t until she noticed the hands of the clock pointed to half past six that she became terribly nervous.