There was no need for this. Jensie had seen and was staring hard, for upon the screen there walked with solemn tread two black horses. They were hitched to an ancient, dilapidated hearse, and on that hearse there rested a coffin.
That this was a part of the mystery Jeanne knew, but what that part was she could not guess. She had not followed the plot. One thing was plain and this she whispered to Jensie.
“That’s the old hearse. It belongs back of the Tavern in the Lincoln Group. They—they must have borrowed it for this picture. They took it in the night. That was the time I saw the black horses and the coffin.”
“Yes. And you know that organ?” the mountain girl whispered back. “I found out about that. It was a colored girl who washes dishes at the Tavern. She loves music, so she hid in the closet and slipped out to play the organ at night. I—I caught her.”
“Sh—sh!”
The mystery was over. Once again Ted Hunter was in the spotlight’s glare. The great moment was at hand.
Never will Jeanne forget the hour that followed. From a distance she heard the motor hum. Next instant she saw herself upon the screen. One good look, ten seconds, she saw herself. Then she, Petite Jeanne, vanished. In her place, standing among the rhododendrons at the side of Big Black Mountain was Zola the child of that mountain.
All that hour she looked upon the screen, listened and lived with Zola. She laughed when it was time to laugh, wept when others wept and shouted as they shouted.
And when the camera gave its last click, when the screen went white and the lights flashed on, she said to herself, “It was not I.”
Yet, even as she sat there they crowded about her, the members of the cast of that picture, the reporters, the critics. They lifted her to their shoulders, carried her to the platform, set her on her feet, and shouted.