“Talk about mysteries——” Connie was beginning when Connie’s mother and Miss Arbuckle came in with the clamoring, excited children. And to say that Miss Arbuckle’s face was radiant would not have been describing it at all.
“Oh girls, girls!” she cried, looking around at them, while her eyes filled with tears, “do you know what you’ve done for me—do you? But of course you don’t,” she answered herself, sitting down on the couch while the children climbed up and snuggled against her. “And that’s what I want to tell you.”
“Ob, but not now,” protested Connie’s mother. “I want to get you a cup of tea first.”
“Oh, please let me tell the girls now. I want to,” begged Miss Arbuckle, and Connie’s mother gave in.
“You see,” the teacher began while the girls gathered around eagerly, “only a few months ago Hugo—my brother—and I were very happy. That was before the dreadful thing happened that changed everything for us. I was nurse and governess,” she hugged the children to her and they gazed up at her fondly, “to these children at the same house where Hugo was head gardener. Our employers were very wealthy people, and, having too many social duties to care for their children, Hugo and I sort of took the place of their father and mother. Indeed we loved them as if they belonged to us.”
She paused a moment, and the girls stirred impatiently.
“Then the terrible thing happened,” she continued. “One night the children disappeared. I had put them to bed as usual, and in the morning when I went in to them they were gone.”
“Oh!” cried the girls.
“But that wasn’t enough—Hugo and I weren’t sorrow-stricken enough,” she went on, a trace of bitterness creeping into her voice. “But they—Mr. and Mrs. Beltz—must accuse us—us—of a plot to kidnap the children. They accused us openly, and Hugo and I, being afraid they had enough circumstantial evidence to convict us, innocent though we were, fled from the house.
“That’s about all,” she said, with a sigh. “Hugo built himself a little refuge in the woods and made fern baskets, selling enough to make him a scanty living, and I went as a teacher and house matron to Three Towers Hall. That is why,” she turned to Billie, who was staring at her fascinated, “I was so desperate when I lost the album, and why,” she added, with a smile, “I acted so foolishly when you returned it.”