Lyon laughed and shook his hand. "I want to add a cane to your collection if you will let me. We'll go and pick it out the day that Lawrence goes free!"
[CHAPTER XXIII]
When Lyon left the Wolcotts, he hurried for the car to reach Howell's office as quickly as possible. As he went down Hemlock Avenue he saw a group of Miss Elliott's girls taking their daily constitutional under the supervision of Miss Rose. In orderly ranks, two by two, they crossed the street sedately, and up on the opposite side, and Lyon scrutinized them eagerly to discover if Kittie was among them. There she was, near the center of the procession, her tall, slight figure swinging in the time of the march, but somehow so much more individual and graceful than any of the others! He was so absorbed in watching her as the file came nearer that he did not notice at all the sound of a runaway behind him until a light delivery wagon, with one wheel gone, dashed frantically by, in the direction of the girls. The horse, wild with terror at the ungainly thing which bumped at his heels, swung in toward the sidewalk, and in a moment the girls had broken ranks and were flying, in swift disorder, in all directions. Lyon had instinctively broken into a run as soon as he saw the situation, but if he had any intention of catching the horse and cutting an heroic figure in the eyes of Kittie, the thought was utterly and absolutely forgotten the next instant. Instead, he suddenly stood stock still in the middle of the street, staring at one of the girls who had cut diagonally across the road with the long, easy running gait that he had seen once and only once before. It was the girl who had fled from the scene of Fullerton's murder, and so had swept for an instant across the field of Lyon's vision,--and it was not the frail and delicate invalid, Mrs. Broughton, nor yet the slow and stately Miss Wolcott. This was a young athlete, who ran with a grace, a sureness, that made the sight a joy and unforgettable. It was not until she had turned again and was clinging to his arm for protection that he fully realized what it meant that he should have identified the running girl whom he had so long been searching for with Kittie Tayntor.
"Oh, Cousin Percy, wasn't it perfectly beautiful that the horse should run away right here and give you a chance to rescue me like this? I have always wanted to be rescued to see what it would feel like. The girls in the novels almost always faint, but I never faint, so I knew I would always be able to remember afterwards just how it felt. I was so glad when I saw that you were the only man in sight on the street!"
"Kittie, when we were talking about Mr. Fullerton, why didn't you tell me what you knew about it?"
"What I knew? About what?"
"About the--accident."
"I don't know what you are talking about."
She looked so plainly bewildered that his heart sank. Could it be, after all, that she really knew nothing. She must know! He took up the filmy clue carefully.
"Kittie, one evening not long ago--it was on the Monday before Thanksgiving--I was on Hemlock Avenue opposite Miss Wolcott's, and I saw a girl run across the street, and in at the Wolcotts' side yard. She ran just as you ran a minute ago when that horse startled you. Wasn't that girl you?"