Patsy saw. Mr. Runyon was seated on a garden bench in earnest conversation with Mildred Travers.
“Didn’t he go home this morning, after the excitement was over?” she asked.
“No,” replied Beth. “Mr. and Mrs. Hahn drove their car home, but our interesting neighbor at the north, Mr. Bul Run, declared there was nothing at his own ranch half so enticing as a bed here. He’s a bachelor, it seems, and leads rather a lonely life. So Arthur gave him a room and he went to bed; but it seems he has had his sleep out and is indulging in other recreations.”
Patsy was eyeing the couple in the garden.
“Mr. Runyon seems to have struck up a friendship with your protégé Mildred,” she observed.
“Yes,” answered Beth. “You know he was shut up in the wall with her and Inez for awhile and the adventure must have made them feel well acquainted. Wasn’t that imprisonment a most peculiar thing, Patsy?”
“Very peculiar. I haven’t had much time to think about it, for as soon as Toodlums was safe in Louise’s arms I went to bed. But it occurs to me to wonder how Mildred Travers knew so much of the secrets of this absurd old house and why she ventured to explore the hidden rooms in our absence. Put that with the fact that she lived in these parts as a girl, and with her eagerness to come out here—don’t you remember her fervent ‘thank heaven’?—and it seems the whole mystery isn’t unraveled yet; it’s only getting more tangled.”
Beth was thoughtful for a time.
“I am sure Mildred will have some explanation to make,” she said presently. “Don’t let us judge her just yet, Patsy. And I advise you to get dressed, for there’s Louise wheeling the baby, and perhaps everyone else is downstairs but us.”
“Louise and baby both slept all through that awful night,” remarked Patsy, again yawning. “No wonder they’re up and around and looking bright and happy.” But she took her cousin’s hint and dressed so rapidly that she descended the stairs only a few moments after Beth did.