And at this point a little sigh escaped from Mary Louise.
The wind evidently being in a mood sympathetic with her own, gave a sudden gusty sigh of despair; it fairly shook the house, and whistling about the chimney, finally expended itself in whirling through the window the tiny bit of cambric Mary Louise called a handkerchief.
She rose listlessly to catch it, her thoughts all centered on her problem, but the bit of white fluttered off in gay abandon among the rose bushes. Mary Louise watched the speck of light out there, idly leaning her rose-clad shoulder against the frame of the open window.
Suddenly she felt she could no longer breathe inside. She must, she felt, get out in the wind, under the clouds, and feel the wildness and vitality of the night. Her rose-pink bedroom opened on a little balcony from which a few steps led directly into the garden. With a sudden sense of relief, Mary Louise threw back her dark head, breathing in the very storm about her, and ran down the steps into the dark. Straight for the group of tall pines at the rear of the grounds she went, to hear their wailing response to the wind, and to watch the hide and seek of the moonlight through the long needles.
Refreshed and almost happy again, she leaned against the dark pungent trunk of the oldest pine, and her dark eyes turned to the tower room that had been Danny’s.
All at once she started quickly, for faint and dim though it was, a light was unmistakably filtering through the drawn shutters of the tower chamber.
“Oh!” gasped the girl, her voice trembling with relief. “Of course he came back; I knew he would; but he must come to the house and tell Grandpa Jim he’s back.”
So saying, she ran across the open space and finding the door of the old stable to be unlocked though tightly closed, she pushed it back. As she did so, the moon drifted out from behind its veil and shone full and bright upon the smart trim car which Mary Louise had named “Queenie.” Yes, there it was without a scratch or mar that Mary Louise could see, and appearing as matter of fact as though it had never vanished into thin air!
Mary Louise welcomed it home with a little pat of joy, but most of that joy just now was for the Danny Dexter who had brought her automobile safely back.
Standing there by her beloved car she called shyly, “Danny.”