“Chills and fever!” Phœbe suddenly stamped her foot and shook her red hair at him. “Aren’t you ever goin’ to speak again?”
“Count” leaped to his feet, yelped suddenly, and started about the room, his nose to the ground.
“Glory be!” laughed Phœbe. “He thought I was a gun flying off. The same I was. I couldn’t keep still that long again without explodin’. You go take a bath, young man. You’ll feel better. You’ll find the same suit dried out and hangin’ up in the room on the right. Go take a swim and then come up here, and we’ll get things straightened out.”
He rose and went towards the little room, but he said nothing. A nod of his head seemed to be enough, and a kindly smile expressed acquiescence.
“I wouldn’t make a good lady detective,” sighed Phœbe. If the villain was fine and good-looking, she thought, and gazed afar off across the water with mild, blue eyes—ach! she would be pounding away at his chains with a saw and a jimmy and inventing ways of escape from the lock-up. Her heart was too soft for that business. Well! she could keep her eye open, at any rate. Even if she had lived in the country all her life she knew a thing or two, the which Handsome Harrys might find out. What was the use of subscribing yearly to the New York Times if it wasn’t to give you a vicarious experience of the ways of the world?
As Richard passed her he stooped for a moment to examine her sewing—something or other the largest ingredient of which seemed to be lace—looked straight into her face, gently, almost boyishly shy, and then without a word walked out to the end of the little dock. He dived immediately and struck out at a diagonal for the farther shore.
Occasionally Phœbe looked up to note the receding figure. When about the middle of the Lake she saw him turn and make straight out towards the main branch. It may be remembered that Lake Keuka is shaped like a mitten with a very large thumb. Mrs. Norris’ cottage was at the tip-end of the thumb. Towards the rest of the “hand” Richard swam, a distance of over two miles. Soon he was not discernible, except through Phœbe’s fine field-glass, wherein he could be observed swimming a long steady stroke.
“The villain escapes by swimming the Lake,” Phœbe chuckled. “Sure it’s a fine movie actor he’d make.” She sewed on thoughtfully for a minute or two and then added, “Well, if he doesn’t come back it’s a good bargain I’ve made swapping Seth’s cotton bathing togs for an all-wool Norfolk suit.”
The cool refreshing water was as balm to the troubled “villain.” As the world judged matters he knew he was a failure; but generally he was strong enough to ignore the world and live his individual life. Often, however, the constant pressure of inquiry or of accusation—the world will harry you if you do not conform, as all martyrs will testify—had their cumulative effect of inducing depression. It was only by vigorous open-air exercise or the summoning of all his will that he was able to stand erect and unshaken. The waters of Lake Keuka were tonic to the will. As he plied on, his spirits rose. He saw the law of his own life clearer; he resolved to be true to nothing but himself. His shyness waned and vanished, and strength came. “Resolve to be thyself,” he quoted, “and know that he who finds himself loses his misery.”
Bluff Point began to loom on his left as he passed out of the “thumb” and got out into the main branch, here over a mile wide. The Point was a sheer rise out of the water of almost a thousand feet, and it towered like a huge mountain. He turned about and faced north in order to get a better view of the Point, and became aware of a familiar cat-boat tacking across in front of him.