Thus five o’clock merged into six, and six into half past, and at last His Grace took his little son away, leaving the others still in the garden feeling quite as if they had been taking part in a play.
All this time Billie wondered where Marie-Jeanne was, but she never came and they have never seen her from that day to this. However, she has written to Billie several long happy letters. She and her mother had a little home on the bank of the river near Oxford, she said, and besides her household duties, she was studying history and French.
That night, after dinner, Beatrice and Billie walked arm in arm in the moonlit garden.
“Billie,” began Beatrice, “uncle says that since you were cleverer than all the detectives and really found little Arthur, you have a right to know something, and he has given me permission to tell you.”
“Is it about Telemac Kalisch?”
“I suppose you know him by that name. He is really Arthur’s great-grandfather, and the grandfather of Maddelina, my uncle’s second wife. But he is many more things besides and we are quite afraid of him, although uncle has met him and says he is charming.”
“He is,” said Billie, “but what is the mystery about him?”
“He is supposed to be at the head of a great secret society. It’s everywhere, all over the world, and it’s for poor people,—socialistic, uncle calls it,—but it has members in all classes and it’s to establish peace. Of course, it’s not actually known that the society exists, and if it does, how far it goes and what it actually does. It’s only supposed. Uncle says that there is no telling who belongs, perhaps some of his own servants for all he knows. At any rate, Mr. Kalisch is a very marvelous old man. No one knows his age, but Uncle once heard he was very, very old, but that he doesn’t believe in age or in illness. He has all kinds of queer theories and he has friends in all classes, princes and common people. He isn’t afraid of anything in the world. Uncle said long ago that His Grace, as we always used to call Uncle Max, had better be careful. Old Telemac loved his granddaughter, and he would certainly have an eye on little Arthur.”
“It’s all very queer,” said Billie, deeply interested in the history of the strange old man.
The two girls followed the walk leading to the other side of the ruined chapel, where stood the half-demolished tower, and Billie told Beatrice the dream she had had the night of the storm, and how she had heard the bell ring out once, probably as it fell.