As she sat there absorbed in her own thoughts, she suddenly became conscious of the fact that the child at her side was silently weeping.
“Why!” she exclaimed, “what are you crying for? You are going back to your cottage and to your kind old man.”
“The book,” whispered the child; “it is gone. I can never return it.”
A sudden impulse seized Lucile, an impulse she could scarcely resist. She wanted to take the child in her arms and say:
“Dear little girl, I have the book in my room. I will bring it to you to-morrow.”
She did not say it. She could not. As far as she knew, the old man had no right to the book; it belonged to Frank Morrow.
What she did say was, “I shouldn’t worry any more about it if I were you. I am sure it will come out all right in the end.”
Then, before they knew it, they were off the elevated train and walking toward Tyler street and Lucile was saying to herself, “I wonder what next.” Hand-in-hand the two made their way to the door of the dingy old cottage.
CHAPTER XIII
IN THE MYSTERY ROOM AT NIGHT
Much to her surprise, just when she had expected to be trudging back to the station alone, Lucile found herself seated by a table in the mystery room. She was sipping a delicious cup of hot chocolate and talking to the mystery child and her mysterious godfather. Every now and again she paused to catch her breath. It was hard for her to realize that she was in the mystery room of the mysterious cottage on Tyler street. Yet there she certainly was. The child had invited her in.