"And you still want to marry me?" she queried.
"Yes; I want you more every minute I know you."
"Then, I know you really love me," she murmured. "But, Robert—I cannot draw back now. If you will wait until this thing reaches its inevitable end—and you still feel that you want me—then I will answer you."
Mary Sturtevant rose to her feet and Forrester knew that she was dismissing him. Her companion had long since discreetly disappeared and the dusk of approaching evening already threw the porch into shadow. Realizing that they were free from observation, and acting on a sudden impulse, Forrester took the girl in his arms and held her close to him. She neither resisted nor responded, but her soft, warm body aroused in Forrester a feeling of reckless determination to solve the mystery quickly and at any cost. Releasing her, he left without a word, dashing down the steps and across the drive to his car.
[CHAPTER XIV—THE INTRUDERS]
Several days passed without incident, and so far as Green or Forrester were concerned, no progress had been made. Each day Green went to his post in the pergola and lolled in an easy chair while consuming Forrester's cigars at an alarming rate. With the lake rippling at his feet, birds calling in the trees around him, and gentle breezes tempering the increasing heat of advancing summer, Green was in paradise. The monotonous hours of his watch were relieved by occasional visits from William, the chauffeur, and flirtations with the maids.
Forrester, on the other hand, existed in a state of feverish but profitless activity. He secured several books on criminology and studied them conscientiously in the quiet of the library; he spent hours in the woods watching the tree or spying upon the negress, Lucy. He could not free himself from the idea that this eerie colored woman was in some way connected with the mystery, although Green scoffed at its possibility.
"You're wastin' time on that Jamaica nigger woman," counseled Green. "That type can't stand prosperity. If she had her fingers on any o' them dollars, she wouldn't be rustin' away in the woods. I'd risk a bet that she's just hidin' from her past."
Once Forrester called on Mary Sturtevant during this quiescent interval, and twice met her at social functions to which both had been invited. On these latter occasions the girl had eluded all his efforts to be alone with her. In fact, Forrester had a feeling that she purposely avoided any appearance of more than a mere acquaintance with him.
He was not deceived by these eventless days. Surmising that the "Friends of the Poor" were holding off some act of retaliation merely to lull him into a sense of false security and thus take him off his guard, Forrester maintained a constant watchfulness of everything about him. This caution at times may have made him appear churlish; in such instances as a refusal to accept assistance from passing motorists when he had trouble with his car on the road.