Good-bye, Knight. Your service is over. It has been an ungrateful one. But I am more grateful than I can say. You must not go. You must stay. I have written to Helen—she is the kind one—and told her about it; just how I dragged you into it to take the real Sir Montrose’s place. I had to tell her who you were. But your secret won’t be betrayed. So you won’t have to go away. You’ll be safe here. I’m glad. I like to think of you here. It’s been good—hasn’t it? Perhaps when you are able to come back to New York I’ll see you at Gloria’s some time.
I can’t say a millionth part of what I want to. I couldn’t even if there were time. You’ve been so good to me—so good. And all you’ve had for it is trouble. I’m sorry.
Good-night, Knight. D. C.
“Even if there were time.” As has been indicated, Jack Remsen’s mind could, on occasion, work swiftly.
Time for what? Why should she be pressed for time? Obviously, because she was going away. And she would leave that note only just before her departure. That could mean only the eleven o’clock train from Meredith: the train he had intended taking before she asked him to postpone his departure until the morrow. Of course; so that he should get her note! On her way to the station she would leave the explanatory and damnatory letter for Helen Wood at the Island. Well, it would be a long time before that letter reached its addressee!
Examination of the blanketed ground confirmed his reasoning. There were the small, clear-set footprints, infinitely pathetic in the black wildness of the night. As he well knew from experience, catching up with Darcy Cole when she was set on getting somewhere was a job for the undivided attention of the briskest pedestrian. He set out along the road at a dogtrot.
His first stop was for the purpose of committing a felony, punishable by several years in the Federal penitentiary. It took him about a second to complete the crime, and, as he left the rifled mail-box behind, his inside pocket quite bulged with the fat letter wherein Darcy had set forth her circumstantial but by no means complete confession which was to exculpate her partner and inculpate herself. Remsen’s heart beat a little faster under that bulky epistle with its contents of courage and self-sacrifice.
At the door of a late-autumnal cottage he borrowed a flash. With this he could plainly discern the trail of the little feet, blurred but not obliterated by the snowfall. His watch indicated a quarter after nine. He jogged on with high hopes.
On a long, straight, level stretch he let himself out for a burst of speed. Perhaps, from the summit of the hill in which it terminated, he might catch a glimpse of her, for the moon was now trying its best to send a struggling ray through the flying wrack of cloud. Tenderly he pictured to himself the vision of her; head up to the storm, the strong, lithe shoulders squared, skimming with that easy, effortless pace of hers that had in it all the grace of perfectly controlled vigor.
Halfway across the open space he slackened up to cast the light of the flash on the road.