Christmas passed, and the winter, and she was unrelieved. She was busy with her teaching, but except when engrossed by that, was haunted by anxiety and apprehension. She had finally decided to go East during the long summer vacation, ill as she could afford to make the journey, to investigate for herself, when one night after school she dropped in to see a friend, and while waiting picked up a New York paper.
Some one in the house had that day returned from a journey East, and the paper was dated five days earlier. It happened to be folded with the page given over to amusements uppermost. Glancing carelessly over columns that devoted a paragraph each to an amazing number of cinema theatres, her eye suddenly caught the familiar name, Elsie Marley.
With a vision of her stepdaughter as she had sung the old rhyme, she mechanically followed the words until the word "dimples" arrested her attention. Then she read the paragraph with beating heart. She read it twice before she fully comprehended—understood that Elsie Marley had completed her sixth week at the Merry Nickel in her song-dance specialty, "And Do You Ken Elsie Marley, Honey?" Miss Marley was declared to be more popular than ever; managers were clamoring for her and she had engagements a year ahead. The notice added that despite the fact that her voice was so wonderful, her dancing and acting inimitable, some people declared that it was her dimples that wrought the spell—that she might stand dumb and motionless before the footlights if she would only smile.
Mrs. Moss's first clear sensation was indignation toward Mr. Middleton. She felt she could never forgive him for allowing this situation to come about without warning her. Then she realized that this was the key to the whole situation. She had not heard from the girl for six weeks—just the length of time she must now have been at the theatre. Excusing herself before her friend appeared, she hastened home in a tumult of emotion.
She did not know which way to turn. She couldn't bear the idea of Elsie being on the stage of a motion-picture theatre; it seemed as if it would break her heart. And still worse was the knowledge that the girl had deceived her; that she had written empty, non-committal notes calculated to make her believe she was staying quietly with her uncle, when she was all the time preparing for this. And she had always been so frank and upright, so easy to appeal to and to persuade! It seemed to Mrs. Moss that she must have come under unfortunate influence.
Her first impulse was to write to Elsie; her second, to Mr. Middleton; but she did neither. The situation was now too critical to be handled from a distance. There were only two weeks more of school. She secured accommodations on the railway for the evening of the last day of the term.
On the sixth day after, she appeared without warning at the parsonage at Enderby. A pleasant-faced woman who might be Mrs. Middleton, though she did not look like an invalid, sat on the veranda entertaining a little girl with a big baby in a perambulator. She asked at the door for Mr. Middleton and was shown into his study.
He came in directly, and the sight of his handsome, refined, strong and serene face, with a vague resemblance to Elsie's, revived her drooping spirits. Suddenly she felt that whatever he sanctioned must be right. She inquired falteringly for Elsie before she announced her name or her errand.
She learned that the girl was well, and, to her surprise, would be in presently. Then the season was over, she decided, and recollecting herself, gave her name.
He smiled. "I thought as much from the way you spoke her name," he said. "Elsie will be delighted. May I call Mrs. Middleton?"