“Tell me, tell me how, quick.”
“Dead easy,” Druce explained smoothly. “I’m going back to Chicago on the evening train tonight. Now there’s no use having trouble with your folks. They wouldn’t understand. You tell them you are going over to one of the neighbors’, anything you can think of. That train slows down at the junction, right across the field there—you can always hear it whistle. I’ll be aboard the last car and I’ll take you to Chicago with me. Then when we get there we—”
He broke off abruptly for Elsie started up from the bench and moved slowly away.
“What’s the matter, girlie?” asked Druce.
“I—I don’t know,” the girl answered. “There isn’t anyone here but just us, is there?”
“No,” replied Druce, watching the girl closely, “why?”
“Because,” she half whispered, “it seemed to me just then that someone touched me on the arm and said, ‘Don’t go!’”
Druce started. He looked carefully around. Then he laughed.
“You’re hearing things tonight, Elsie,” he said. “There’s no one here but just you and me.” He took her by the hand and was drawing her down to the bench when suddenly the front door of the cottage opened and Mrs. Welcome appeared.
“Elsie,” she called. She stood framed in the lighted doorway, her eyes shaded with her hand. Like a shadow Druce faded from his seat beside the girl and dodged behind a tree out of sight, but in hearing.