CHAPTER XXIV
THE LITTLE BLACK TRAMP
It was evening of the following day. The fire on that big flat rock burned brightly. Florence and Greta sat sipping hot chocolate from paper cups. For a full half hour, while twilight faded into night, neither spoke.
It was Greta who broke the silence. “Florence,” she said soberly, “life is strange.”
“Yes,” Florence agreed.
“Here we are on Greenstone Ridge,” the dark-eyed girl went on. “We came here to explore and to—to search out the secrets of the phantom. We found the phantom. We solved the mystery. And yet—”
“The phantom is more mysterious than before.” Florence smiled a dreamy smile.
“Yes,” Greta replied quickly, “he is! And perhaps we shall never delve more deeply into this mystery. We have not seen him since that night when, like knights of old, we marched down upon that mysterious cabin by the lake.”
“We have heard his music but have not seen him, your strange Percy O’Hara,” Florence said quietly.
This was exactly true. When the strange little doctor had suggested that they assist him in his marvelous cure of that boy afflicted with mental terror, Percy O’Hara had agreed at once, but had suggested that Greta should furnish the music close at hand and that his should be little more than an echo. This arranged, he had slipped away into the night. Since then they had heard him twice, had seen him not at all.
“Why?” Greta whispered to herself. “Why?” There came no answer.