Tobias O' The Light Part 27

"Oh!" gasped Lorna.

"It's a sordid piece of business," said Degger, ruminatively. "Whether he really did take her away from her folks or not, I don't know. But she needs help now, and I heard about it. I put it up to Endicott and-well, you can see what I got for my pains," he concluded with a bitter laugh.

Lorna was shaken by his words. She was disgusted and horrified. Ralph Endicott to be connected with such a sordid affair as this that Degger intimated? She could scarcely believe it. She thought she knew Ralph so well!

"I cannot imagine Ralph doing such a thing as you suggest, Mr. Degger,"

she said gravely. "I think I know him quite as well as anybody-better than you do, for instance--"

"I don't doubt it," interposed Degger, grimly. "But a fellow is sometimes quite different away from home-and at college-from what he is among his family and friends." He laughed harshly. "Oh, Endicott knows the girl well. See here! This he tore from his address book and threw at me when he said he'd got through with her-well, you can look or not as you please," as Lorna turned her face from him.

He had dragged from his pocket the crumpled leaf of a memorandum book and offered it to her. In spite of herself the girl could not refuse to look at it.

She recognized a leaf of the little red book she had often seen in Ralph's possession. Yes! That was his writing. She would know it anywhere. Boldly Ralph had set down:

"Cora Devine "27 Canstony Street "Charlestown, Ma.s.s."

Lorna was not likely to forget that name and address. A flame of anger shot all through her trembling body. She did not realize that Degger was watching her with sly delight at the mental pain he caused her.

"I would not have believed!" she murmured.

"Oh, Endicott is sly-dee-vilish sly," chuckled Degger. "But I guess Cora Devine has been causing him some worriment of late. She wants money. She's been nagging him for it, like enough. That is what made him so sore, I suppose, when I tried to say a good word for her to him.

"Oh, well! I was a fool. I a.s.sure you, Miss Nicholet, I've washed my hands of them both. If the girl finds a shyster lawyer to take up her case, Endicott will sweat. Let him. He deserves to."

"Now, I'll get down here, if you don't mind," added the fellow, as they came to the Outskirts of Clinkerport. "Thanks for the lift. I've had my lesson, I have. I'm going to mind my own affairs strictly in the future. I'm sorry for the Devine girl; but she'll have to fight her own battles as far as Endicott is concerned. Good-day, Miss Nicholet."

Lorna could not even find voice to tell Jackson to drive on. But he did so on his own initiative while Lorna sat very upright in the tonneau of the car, clutching that leaf of Ralph's address book in her hand.

CHAPTER XVII

REAL TROUBLE

Many a Paul Revere has ridden through New England hamlets since the original courier of that name and fame saw the lights twinkle in Old North's steeple. None ever carried more exciting news to the rural folk than Zeke Ba.s.sett in his motor car brought to the Twin Rocks Light early on this summer morning.

For two months the life saving crews were excused from duty at the stations. Only the captain of the crew remained on guard at the Lower Trillion station. These two summer months Zeke usually spent with Tobias and Heppy at the Light.

Occasionally Zeke made an odd dollar taking a pa.s.senger to and from the railroad station. On this morning he had driven a neighbor to the early train-"the clam train"-that stopped at Clinkerport at 5:30. When he came back he scattered along the sh.e.l.l road driblets of news that was destined to flash over the countryside in wide excitement.

Zeke kept his car under Ezra Condon's shed down the road, but he stopped before Miss Heppy's flower garden, where she was weeding, to tell her the news. He startled her so that the lightkeeper's sister fell back in the sand, trowel in hand, her broad face paling slowly under the peak of her sunbonnet.

"Zeke! You don't mean it's true?" demanded Miss Heppy in a smothered shriek.

"Cross my heart, Cousin Heppy!" declared the young man. "There's a crowd around the door already-and it's shut. They'll be howlin' there like wolves b'fore noon."

He started the shaking car again, and it wheezed away. Miss Heppy was several moments getting upon her feet. All strength seemed to have left her limbs.

She tottered into the lighthouse. Tobias was up in the lamp room polis.h.i.+ng the bra.s.swork. She might have called to him, but it did not seem to her that she could lift her voice sufficiently to make him hear.

Weak as she felt bodily, she started to climb the spiral stair.

That climb was an unforgettable experience for Hephzibah Ba.s.sett. The higher she climbed the lower her spirits fell. In all her long life disaster had never looked so black and threatening before her as it did now.

For many years she and Tobias had worked, and she had scrimped and saved, against that "rainy day" that is the dread of most cautious souls of middle age. Each dollar added to their slowly growing h.o.a.rd had seemed positively to lighten the burden of fear of old age on Miss Heppy's heart.

Tobias frequently called her "Martha." She admitted she was c.u.mbered by many cares. She believed they had been very real, those troubles she saw in the offing.

And here, of late, had come the unexpected good fortune-a blessing long hoped for, yet never really believed possible by either Miss Heppy or her brother. A few hundred dollars from the estate of Cap'n Jethro Potts would have delighted them. But six thousand dollars! The gain of that sum had been quite outside their imagination.

Altogether to their joint account in the Clinkerport Bank their bankbook showed now just a few dollars over eight thousand-to these plain longsh.o.r.e people an actual fortune.

And now--

Miss Heppy panted her way up the last few steps. Ordinarily her flesh would have caused her to more than pant. Her face would have been as red as a sunset.

But it was positively a pallid countenance that appeared to Tobias as he briskly polished bra.s.swork and whistled a wandering little tune through his teeth. He did not look at her at first as she appeared through the hatchway; but he recognized her step.

"I give it as my opinion," he said reflectively, "that if I had to puff and blow like a s.h.i.+p's donkey-engine, comin' up them stairs, I wouldn't come aloft no oftener than I could help. What's sprung a leak now to bring you 'way up here, Heppy?"

"Tobias! Tobias!" gasped Miss Heppy.

"Oh, sugar! Take your time. Get your breath. If it's bad news I'd just as lief not hear it at all. If it's good news I've found that expectation is a sight more satisfying than fulfilment most times. I can wait--

"Dad fetch it, Heppy! what's the matter o' ye?"

She had fairly tottered into his arms. She hung to him, sobbing and gasping for breath. Tobias staggered under her weight. It was a minute or more before Miss Heppy could make audible her trouble.

"Tobias, it's gone!"

"What ye lost? Them false teeth again? I knowed--"

"Tobias, it's worse than that. It's the money!"

"What money?"

"Our money, Tobias! All our money! Uncle Jethro's legacy and all!"

"Oh, sugar, Heppy, you been dreamin'? You know that money's safe in the bank," he urged.

"But it ain't safe. The bank ain't safe. We've been robbed!" she cried, her voice rising to a thin shriek.

"Heppy! What ever do you mean? That dratted Arad Thompson! You don't mean to say he's got away with it? And in that wheel chair?"

"It isn't Arad Thompson! Oh, it isn't him!" wailed his sister. "The bank has been robbed! Burglars! Last night! Every penny of cash in it!

A hundred and forty thousand dollars, so Zeke says!"