“Danny was sick about worrying you, and finally insisted that we push back the car and then meet here. Sorry I had to bring you but my freedom was in pawn, and now—” the man’s voice grew husky—“that lad has made me give my word to hand him my accounts. He swears he’ll make up the deficit. Good Lord, what a boy!”
Mary Louise breathed a soft “Amen.” Her eyes were like twin stars from pride and happiness, and as the man pressed a large envelope into her hand, she realized that one mystery was solved.
“Will you give him that?” said the man, and added, “God bless you both,” as he jumped to the ground and left her.
The strange individual seemed to be swallowed up instantly by the darkness, and except when the flashes of lightning revealed it, the dark bobbing object in the marsh was also invisible. Mary Louise suddenly felt very much alone. She welcomed even the approach of the mysterious something, which each vivid flash of electricity revealed as coming nearer, ever nearer. It seemed to leap and dip and sidle, but at the same time constantly to advance.
The weird hoot of an owl from a tree that edged the lane caused Mary Louise to shiver and to draw the auto robe more closely about her, although the heat of the night seemed to be weighing down all nature. She felt cold and utterly deserted. The now incessant rumble of the thunder drowned any sound the approaching object might be making, and as Mary Louise sat waiting and trembling a great bat flew blindly down and beat its loathsome wings against the car. That was enough and more than enough for Mary Louise. With a gasp she sank on the floor of the auto and covered her head with the robe.
So it happened that when the Ford runabout came close to the car she neither saw nor heard it. Neither did she see one man jump out and help the stranger into his vacant seat, as the latter wrung his hand and bade him farewell in a queer, choked voice.
“My boy, God bless you,” muttered the older man, “and I promise to be on the level for your sake from this time on. ‘Thank you’ are feeble words.”
Danny’s voice was very gentle as he put his strong arm around the trembling shoulders of the older man.
“Uncle Jim,” he said, “I understand a great deal more than before I went into that Hell over there, and I can’t forget that everything you did was for me—to give me money and education. It is just that I should square up our accounts and I want to do it.”
At this point Will White, who had been sitting quietly at the wheel, struck a match and, looking at his watch, suggested: “If my watch ain’t fast and if that train ain’t slow, we’d better hustle.”