[CHAPTER XIX—A DESERTED TRYST]
Nora was disconsolate. For two days the dainties left for Lucia had remained untouched. The bread box which Vita had given her to play with, and into which the food was deposited for Lucia, stood upon the tree stump with the sliced lamb, the piece of cake, and the big orange which comprised the last installment offered by the sympathetic Nora, just as she had left it.
“Can anything have happened to her?” Nora asked herself. She was almost too disappointed to sit down and rest in the cool, quiet shade. Cap sniffed the box but did not put a paw up to beg, and even the big noisy blue-jay scorned a few crumbs that lay on a fallen leaf.
“Suppose he—murdered her!”
It was not unusual for a girl like Nora to think the very worst first, in fact the normal, childish mind is very apt to leap at a sensation, but only the high spot is sensed, the detail is always conspicuously lacking.
“Of course she is deadly sick. Oh, why didn’t she let me know where she lived,” Nora wailed secretly. “I could visit her and bring her all sorts of lovely things——”
She lifted the paper napkin that covered the food offering.
“What’s this?” she exclaimed. A stiff little green leaf made of very shiny paper appeared, and with it, Nora found, was an old fashioned nose-gay, the sort beloved by the Italians and the Polish peasantry. Nora picked up the spray. It was tied with a green ribbon and somehow gave Nora a distinct shock.
“Oh! She’s dead, this is what they—have at funerals!”
Tears welled up into the blue eyes, and hands holding the silent message trembled. Nora sat down and Cap nosed up to her; he knew something was the matter.