“Yes, they’re working at it. But their methods are different from mine, and while they’re all right, I doubt if they get anywhere. Sometimes I doubt if I will, either. Howsumever, you toddle along to Atlantic City with Nursey, and I’ll try to corral a nice young man for you to marry before the fatal thirtieth gets much nearer. You wasted some good time with that illness of yours,—though I don’t wonder at it, I’m sure.”
“Why, what could I have done,—if I hadn’t been ill?”
“Nothing definite, but I feel sure the abductors would have written you another of those good-looking notes, and if you had gone on another taxi ride, I should have been off in the offing somehow.”
The nurse, a Miss Loring, was a pleasant, sympathetic girl, and as she of course knew all about Elsie’s tragedy from the papers, she was deeply interested in her young charge. She was experienced and capable and Elsie found herself really glad to go away with the kind and gentle nurse.
They were pleasantly located in The Turrets, a new hotel, and after twenty-four hours of rest and sea air Elsie felt wonderfully better.
“I’m not really ill, you know,” she said, and the nurse agreed.
“No, Miss Powell, but it was a real nervous breakdown, and another will follow, unless you try to keep it off.”
“I’ll try,” and Elsie voluntarily became a biddable and obedient patient.
It was on a Thursday,—just one week before the thirtieth of June that the two went for a ride in the rolling chairs. Sometimes they rode together, but this day they chanced to take separate chairs.
The man who pushed Elsie’s was a big, husky chap, with an engaging smile. Miss Loring’s man was a slender youth, but of a wiry strength.