"Of course you don't. And I can't explain. Probably I never can and you mustn't ask me to. But—but—I had to say this. I had to beg your pardon and tell you how ashamed I am.... That's all.... Thank you."
She turned and almost ran from the platform, down the steps and across the street to the waiting buggy. Sears Kendrick stared after her, stared until that buggy disappeared around the bend in the road. Then he breathed heavily, straightened his cap, slowly shook his head, and entered the lawyer's office. He was still in a sort of trance when he sat down in the chair in the inner room and heard Bradley bid him good morning. He returned the good morning, but he heard, or understood, very little of what the lawyer said immediately afterward. When he did begin vaguely to comprehend he found the latter was speaking of Elizabeth Berry.
"I wish I knew what her trouble is," Bradley was saying. "She won't tell me, won't even admit that there is any trouble, but that doesn't need telling. The last half dozen times I have seen her she has seemed and looked worried and absent-minded. And this morning she drove way over here to ask me some almost childish questions about her investments, the money the judge left her. Wanted to know if it was safe, or something like that. She didn't admit that was it, exactly, but that was as near as I could get to what she was driving at. Do you know what's troubling her, Kendrick?"
Sears shook his head. "No-o," he replied. "I've heard—but no, I don't know. She wanted to be sure her money was safe, you say?"
"Why, not safely invested, I don't think that was it. She seemed to want to know what I'd done with the bonds themselves and the other securities of hers. I told her they were in the deposit vaults over at the Bayport bank; that is, some of them were there and some of them were in the bank at Harniss. Then she asked if any one could get them, anybody except she or I. Of course I told her no, and not even I without an order from her. She seemed a little relieved, I thought, but when I asked questions she shut up like a quahaug. But that seemed a silly errand to come away over here on. Don't you think so, Cap'n? ... Eh? What's the matter? What are you looking at me like that for?"
The captain was looking at him, was looking with an expression of intense and eager interest. He did not answer Bradley's question, but asked one, himself.
"Did she ask anything more about—well, about her bonds?" he demanded. "Think now; I'll tell you why by and by."
The lawyer considered. "No-o," he said. "Nothing of importance, surely. She asked—she seemed to want to know particularly if it was possible for any one except the owner or a duly accredited representative to get at securities in the vaults of those banks. That seemed to be the information she was after.... Now what have you got up your sleeve?"
"Nothin'—nothin'. I guess. Or somethin', maybe; I don't know. Bradley, would you mind tellin' me this much: Of course I'm not Elizabeth's trustee any more, but would it be out of the way if you told me whether or not you reinvested any of her twenty thousand in City of Boston bonds? City of Boston 4-1/2s; say?"
Bradley did not answer for a moment. Then from a pigeon hole in his desk he took a packet of papers and selected one.