“Norah! Norah! Where did you come from? I am so glad,” Annie exclaimed, and forgetting the disgust she had felt when she saw Mrs. Hathern kissing Norah on her first arrival at The Elms she threw her arms around the woman’s neck and held her close, crying hysterically in her great joy and relief in seeing her again.
Norah, who had missed the express from Richmond the day before, had come in the night train, reaching Lovering very early that morning. In his last letter to her Jack had told her to go at once to The Plateau. As there was no conveyance at the station she had walked to The Plateau, and been struck with the desolate appearance of the house, around which there was no sign of life, although the key was in the door. Entering she made the tour of the house, noting everything, from the tumbled appearance of the white spread on the bed in the bridal chamber, where the women had inspected the hair mattress, to the soiled footprints on the kitchen floor.
“Where is everybody?” she thought, just as a sound outside attracted her attention.
Going out, she met a negro who looked as if he might be prowling about rather than there for any good.
“Lor-a-mighty,” he exclaimed, “How you scar’t me! I didn’t think nobody was here.”
“Where are the folks? Mr. Fullerton, I mean,” Norah asked, and then listened wonderingly to the story the negro told.
“Miss Fanny done run off wid anoder man, an’ Mas’r Fullerton gone ravin’ mad wid de fever down to de Elms, and Miss Annie jest as bad, an’ de ole Harry to pay generally.”
“And the house left alone with the key in the door. That’s shiftlessness, and accounts for them mud tracks. Some truck has been here,” Norah said, pocketing the key and starting rapidly for The Elms, which she reached just as the sun was rising and Phyllis was banging at the range in her efforts to rekindle the fire which had gone out.
To dump the grate and make a fresh fire was a sore trial to Phyllis, who had never ceased to long for the old kitchen under the dogwood tree.
“I wish de whole caboose was in Tophet,” she said, when turning round she saw Norah standing in the door with an expression on her face which she remembered so well.