What that task was Kendrick had been unable to learn. Either the bookkeeper could not or would not tell him and Phil had been in too great a hurry to get into action to waste time in futile talk. The motive which actuated her must be a strong one to drive her into the hazards of foggy nights, office espionage and actual danger. He could well credit Stiles' assurance that Miss Lawson was not afraid of anything; her calmness after the trying experience in the park was evidence of that.
But the fact of her foolhardy trip into the Algoma wilderness was the main issue to meet just now, and with so much secrecy seemingly desirable Phil had decided that the best thing to do was to go after her himself, follow her, overtake her, protect her if need be. Her paper might or might not know where she had gone and why; but he would say nothing to anybody. If Miss Lawson had some secret, cherished plans her pluck in attempting to carry them out entitled her to some consideration, and she would be grateful for his discretion.
He had need of all the finesse which he could command if he hoped to win a place in her confidence. He could not afford to throw away a single card. As the mysterious lady of the fog she had called him a "fresh Aleck," thanks to his idiotic blundering; but even before that she had chosen for some reason to exert her woman's prerogative and had informed him quite plainly that she did not desire his acquaintance. That ought to have been enough! Then as Miss Margaret Williams she naturally would visit upon him her resentment at being surprised in her eavesdropping; the very stigma of the position in which she found herself before him could be relied upon to add fuel to her dislike, if it were not already sufficiently ablaze because she was beholden to him for his silence in regard to the matter. In the role of Ferguson's stenographer she had told him a second time that she did not wish to know him. Why, she actually disliked him so much that even after his timely arrival in the park had placed her under the obligation of common civility towards him—even after that it had been impossible for her to endure his forced escort a moment longer than it could be avoided!
And finally, there was that solitaire ring on her engagement finger. It did not matter much whether she were engaged to somebody in Buffalo or to McAllister, editor-in-chief of the Recorder. She could marry whom she pleased. He wasn't in love with her. That sort of thing was all rot! It was just that he hated anybody to think ill of him, to dislike him as much as apparently she did. He wanted to apologize for—well, for anything she might want him to apologize for. He wanted her to tell him why she did not wish to number him among her friends. He wanted to be her friend; that was it—Platonic friendship! She was the first girl he had ever fancied he might like to go and talk to once in a while. Just for the pleasure of—well, chumming with her. It wasn't a good thing for a fellow who had no sister not to have a girl chum. She was—oh, what a peacherino of a girl she was!
He smiled wistfully as he conjured a mental picture of her. Once more he took out the dollar bill, unfolded it and studied the dainty hand-painted pin and when he restored it carefully to its place in his pocket-book he breathed deeply and his eyes shone. Which, of course, is the way of things Platonic!
What a deuce of a mix everything had been getting into this last little while back! It was as bad as one of those mystery yarns in the magazines with something happening on every page! He recalled with a smile a heated argument which the fellows had got into on one of the Varsity Areopagus Club nights, when Billy Thorpe had contended that strange adventures were really occurring daily and nightly under the multitudinous noses of the modern, work-a-day world. It was impossible to be a student of history, argued he, without recognizing upon what slender threads of hazard great issues often had dangled, or a reader of the newspapers without admitting that mighty queer things were creeping constantly into the experience of some men. It wasn't necessary to seek these in the distorted perspectives of the criminal underworld or the political intrigues of Continental Europe, for ordinary people were just as liable to have adventures. The trouble with most folks nowadays was that they had been trotting the thoroughfares of every-day commonplaces so long they had got dust in their eyes till they couldn't see the bridle-paths of the Unusual, but that didn't prove that Romance wasn't doing business at the same old stand.
And they all had laughed at Thorpe's bombastic figures of speech and told him to go and talk to a credulous elevator boy somewhere, and asked him if he had the girl aboard the lugger yet and Professor Peabody had wanted to know seriously if he had found any traces of pre-Shakespearian drama in East Lynne!
But by the shade of Sheherazade! Thorpe had been right and Phil hadn't dared to tell him what had happened in the fog. "Bridle paths of the Unusual" with a vengeance! He'd soon have all the ingredients to write one of those wild yarns himself! He couldn't ask for a more beautiful or accomplished heroine than Cristy, or a more interesting place to start the love story than in a dense fog at three a.m. Then there was this fifty thousand dollars vanishing so mysteriously and Podmore—with a little polishing he would work up into a first-class villain; as he stood he was a joke and it was impossible to imagine him even risking a punch on the nose to capture the girl. Nickleby might be better for the real dirty work—or Rives.
"Sixty Buckets of Blood or The Hobo's Revenge!" Phil smiled to himself.
In case Wade got back to Toronto before his new secretary's return from this jaunt Kendrick had enclosed a note with the letter from Nat Lawson, telling the railroad president where he had gone and why.