“Solado was right!” he muttered, between his teeth. “He’s a sharp man, is Solado. He knew Marcos was too badly shot to go to Penza just now. Yet a man supposed to be Marcos has gone. I guess I’ll call up Marcos’ mother from Newport on the long distance, and tell her Marcos has met with an accident. She’ll come rushing up to Crownledge to see her son, and if he’s still there, in bed, as I believe, why, I shall know what to wire to Solado.”
He chuckled as he lighted another cigarette and strolled over to the telephone desk to tell the operator to call up Newport.
CHAPTER III.
A PUZZLE FOR MIGUEL.
There was no train from Newport that night by the time the Princess Laura Marcos, mother of the wounded prince, got the telephone message from Miguel, and she did not feel equal to motoring the distance at night.
By eleven o’clock the next morning, however, she stood in the library at Crownledge, talking to Miguel. He had met her at the station, and though he had not been a welcome visitor at Crownledge heretofore, he had brought her to her home now as a matter of course.
Claudia had met her Aunt Laura at the door, and had said that she was staying at Crownledge to help take care of the gentleman who had been hurt in the grounds at Crownledge.
The princess had wondered why Claudia spoke of her cousin in such a peculiar way. “The gentleman who has been hurt” did not sound as if there were much cousinly affection.
But, then, Claudia Solado had quarreled with Marcos several times, and probably they had had a tiff now. That would accent for it.
“Of course,” murmured his mother to herself. “I never knew two young people who liked each other who were not always quarreling. That does not mean anything. Still, considering the poor boy is sick——”
Claudia had slipped out of the room, saying she wanted to tell the trained nurse that her patient’s mother was coming up.