In the morning the matter was somewhat explained. The boy had arisen before the sun and gone on her way without him.
It was not without a little pang in his heart that the rover trudged onward, alone.
CHAPTER XXVII.
IN BOSTON TOWN.
Garde fairly ran, when she made her early morning start. She had not been able to think of any other solution of the problem of getting back to her own proper sphere without permitting Adam to become aware of the whole situation. She had not come to her resolution to cope with the difficulty thus without many little sighs of regret and a few little fears of what might be the consequences. Nevertheless, she had seen the necessity of prompt action, after which she had felt a desire only for haste. She was, however, buoyed up by the glad thought that Adam would not be long behind her, in his march to town, hence she would soon be seeing him there, under circumstances which would make it possible to accept his love and to lean upon his strong, protecting arm.
The sun was no more than an hour up in the sky when she came to the outskirts of Boston and ran quickly on to Goody Dune’s. Goody was not at all surprised to see her thus returning. Indeed she had looked to see her back at least a week earlier. The old woman, preparing against this moment, had plaited the long locks of hair which Garde had been obliged to leave behind, and these she helped the truant to wind upon her head, with some semblance of natural growth, an effect which she heightened by providing a small lace cap, which made of Mistress Merrill a very demure-appearing little person.
The brown stain rapidly succumbed to Goody’s treatment with vinegar. Garde emerged from the mask as rosy and cream white as an apple, for the open air and the days with Adam had wrought such evidence of health and happiness upon her that not the dread of what she might discover at home, nor any excitement of being in the land of her enemy, could make any paleness in her face of more than a moment’s duration. She was too excited to eat, although Goody tried to urge her to take even a cup of tea, and so she went on to her grandfather’s house, and let herself in, at the rear.
As Granther Donner’s sister had passed away a number of years before, he had been left quite to himself when Garde decamped. But when his illness came so suddenly upon him, Mrs. Soam and Prudence, both persuaded that Garde was almost, if not entirely, in the right, appeared dutifully at his bedside as ministering angels.
Thus Garde, upon entering the kitchen, found her Aunt Gertrude engaged in preparing a breakfast. The good lady was startled.
“Why—Garde!” she gasped. “Oh, dear me, is it really you? Child, where have you been? Oh, David is very ill indeed. I am so glad you have come home!”