Madge Morton's Secret Part 24

Tom was idling on the dock, simply because there was nothing else to do, no place to go, except to return to his mother with the report from the dredging crew. He took no special interest in the slow approach of another great battleship from the waters of Hampton Roads. Although it was usually good fun to watch the sailors come ash.o.r.e after they had been away on a long cruise, to-day nothing was worth while. His thoughts were on the lost girls.

Just before the boat got in he concluded that he was bored with fooling around the wharf; he would take a walk through the town. He turned his back on his friends and deliberately strolled away from the water.

Once Tom Curtis did turn his head. He had heard an unusual stir behind him. The sailors, who were lined up preparatory to going ash.o.r.e, had given the houseboat party a rousing cheer as they left the ship. But even with this chance for discovering his friends, Tom was blind. The crowd hid the little party of women from view, and Tom strode on faster than ever up the river bank toward one of the narrow streets of the town.

"O Miss Jenny Ann!" pleaded Madge as soon as her feet touched land, "I saw Tom Curtis leave the pier just a second ago. He can't be very far away. Won't you let me run after him? I will find him and bring him back in a minute."

Without waiting to hear her chaperon's reply Madge darted up the street at full speed.

Run as hard as she would, Madge could not catch up with Tom. Every time she arrived at one end of a street Tom was about in the act of crossing over to the next one. She could keep him in sight, but she could not reach him. She forgot that Miss Jenny Ann and the rest of her party were waiting for her, and that she really ought to have given up her chase, remembered nothing but the fact that she must see Tom. As she plunged recklessly across a side street, an automobile whirled into it.

At the opposite end of the square Tom Curtis's attention was arrested sharply. He heard the shrill, harsh protest from an automobile horn, then a cry of terror from a girl's throat. Her cry was taken up by half a dozen voices. There was no need to ask questions. He knew what had happened. An automobile had run down a young girl.

It took but a minute for Tom to run back the entire length of the block. But before he got to the spot where the accident had occurred a crowd had risen up as though by magic. It was impossible to see at once who had been hurt. Tom pushed his way through the outer fringe of the crowd. There was a woman in tears, offering her bottle of smelling salts to a girl. A flushed man was bending over the same girl, entreating her forgiveness. A fat policeman was demanding everybody's name.

Tom heard the girl say: "I am not hurt a bit, thank you. I was frightened; that was why I screamed. The front of your car just grazed me, but you stopped it in time. No, policeman, I don't wish to have anybody arrested. Please let me go. I was trying to catch up with a friend. He will be out of sight if I don't hurry."

And it was thus that Tom beheld Madge, whom, a minute before, in his gloomy reverie, he had given up for lost!

"O Tom!" she cried joyously as he hurried toward her, "I did make you look around, after all. We were not drowned. Aren't you glad to see me?"

Tom held Madge's small brown hands in his. "Madge!" was all he found words for.

Tom Curtis was not ashamed of the tears in his eyes as he looked at Madge. The first moment he had feared that she was an apparition that might vanish while he gazed upon it.

"I'm real, Tom; please don't look at me like that," faltered Madge, feeling her own eyes fill with tears. "We have been lost on a desert island, and a battleship brought us home to-day. Why did you run away from me when I tried so hard to catch up with you? I am sure it does not become a young woman to go dashing through the streets after a man who won't even glance back her way."

Madge spoke in this flippant fashion to hide the real emotion she felt in seeing her friend again.

"But, Tom, we must hurry back to the wharf. Miss Jenny Ann and the girls promised to wait on the dock for me until I brought you back. I am afraid they will think I have been gone an awfully long time. Let's go at once."

Madge was amazed to discover how far she had followed Tom when they turned back. She tried to make Tom understand the story as they hurried along. But Tom simply couldn't take in all the facts. He knew that Madge and the houseboat party were alive and well, and, for the time being, this was news enough.

It took them nearly twenty minutes to get back to the spot where Madge had told Miss Jenny Ann to wait for her. When they reached the end of the pier there was no chaperon, no Lieutenant Lawton, no Jeff! The place was almost entirely deserted. Madge's chase through the street, her automobile accident, her conversation with Tom, and their return had occupied nearly three-quarters of an hour.

When first they came ash.o.r.e, Phil, Lillian and Eleanor had waited patiently for the return of their companion. Five minutes pa.s.sed, then ten, soon fifteen. The girls were thinking of their fathers and mothers and the telegrams that should be sent.

At last Phil turned to Lieutenant Lawton. "Lieutenant Jimmy, won't you take me to the nearest telegraph station?" she demanded. "I am sorry not to wait for Madge and Tom, but I must telegraph to my father."

Lillian and Eleanor were in the same state of mind. They also went along with Lieutenant Lawton. It was arranged that Miss Jenny Ann and Jeff should wait for the truant. They would then bring Madge and Tom to the hotel at Portsmouth where they arranged to have dinner.

Miss Jones and Jeff lingered in the same place for half an hour. Miss Jenny Ann then concluded to walk up the river bank to the square to inquire if an accident had happened to the run-away. She must have been in the square when Madge and Tom pa.s.sed without seeing her. A few minutes later Miss Jenny Ann concluded to go on up to the hotel, where the other girls were expecting her. She thought that Tom and Madge must have met the rest of the party and gone on to the hotel with them. She would find them there.

Tom and Madge searched everywhere along the wharf. They stopped half a dozen people to inquire for a party of four women and two men. No one had seen any such group.

"Does everyone in the houseboat crowd look as well as you do?" asked Tom, as they hurried along the street. "If they do, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Here we have been grieving ourselves to death, believing you were lost, and you have been having the jolliest kind of a lark on a little Robinson Crusoe island. You watch me go duck shooting there some day."

But after half an hour of vain inquiry for her friends Madge grew impatient.

"I don't see why the girls didn't wait for me. They went away without letting me know where they were going," she scolded. "Won't you please take me to your mother, Tom? I suppose Miss Jenny Ann will come to Old Point some time to-night."

There had been no plan made, before Madge went away, for spending the night in Portsmouth.

Tom was only too happy to be the little captain's escort. He liked to think of his mother's joy at seeing her. They had a jolly supper on the big, comfortable steamer that travels between Portsmouth and Fortress Monroe, arriving at Old Point a little after dusk.

The streets were almost deserted. It was cool enough for fires, and there was little lingering outdoors. Madge sat down on a bench in a small park, while Tom went to the nearest drug-store to telephone to his mother. He thought it wise to break the news of the discovery of the houseboat party by degrees. Also he wished to know if his mother had yet heard from Miss Jenny Ann and knew where she was.

Madge felt a grateful sense of happiness steal over her as she waited for Tom's return. It was, indeed, pleasant to be with her old friends who cared so much for her. To-day Fortress Monroe did not frown down upon the little home-comer from its stern battlements. The old fort seemed to offer her protection against her enemies.

A few soldiers on leave of absence from their barracks pa.s.sed her in groups of twos and threes. But no one else appeared for several minutes. Tom was taking some time with his telephoning.

Finally an old man and a young girl came down the street in Madge's direction. The old man leaned heavily on the girl's arm. In the half light she could see that they were talking very earnestly and not looking about them. When they were close to her Madge Morton discovered them to be Flora Harris and her grandfather, Admiral Gifford.

Madge turned away her head. She hoped that she would not be observed. A few minutes before she had been so happy and so content. Why should the first person she saw at Old Point Comfort be the only person in the world who would take some of the pleasure away from her home-coming?

If only they would pa.s.s without seeing her! It was almost dark, and she was not even supposed to be in the land of the living, so she sat absolutely still, hardly daring to breathe.

Neither the old admiral, whose eyes were dimmed with age, nor his grand-daughter, saw the little figure on the bench as they walked toward it. They pa.s.sed close by her. Some unseen force must have made Flora Harris turn her head as she came directly opposite Madge.

Flora gave one terrified scream, then began shaking as though with a chill.

"What is it, Flora?" her grandfather demanded. "Are you ill?"

Flora pointed a trembling finger at the other girl.

The old gentleman turned in confusion to glance at Madge. He saw only a young girl sitting quietly on a bench. He could not connect her with Flora's unexpected outcry. The admiral was not familiar with Madge's appearance. He had seen her only a few times, and he had not remembered her face.

Flora was now crying bitterly. She did not cease to stare at Madge, yet she did not speak.

The little captain sprang to her feet. "Don't be frightened, Miss Harris," she said quietly. "I am sorry I startled you. I hope you don't take me for a ghost. We have been shipwrecked for several weeks and only got in this afternoon----"

"Then I haven't murdered you!" Flora sobbed, running forward and flinging her arms about the other girl's neck. "I know that I am hateful and sn.o.bbish, and that I like to make other people uncomfortable, but I didn't mean any real harm to come to the houseboat when I asked Alfred Thornton to cut her loose from her moorings. I just wanted you not to come back here again. And I have not let Alfred Thornton confess that he cut your boat away from the anchor, because I was afraid we would both be put in jail."

Tom Curtis had come upon the little scene and stood listening in silence to Flora's surprising confession. He put his arm through Madge's and drew her quietly away from Flora's embrace. "It is too late to confess this dreadful story to-night, Miss Harris," he declared coolly. "Miss Morton has just arrived, and I am taking her to my mother. Her friends are spending the night at Portsmouth. My mother has just told me they have telegraphed her that they will be here to-morrow. If you will come to see us in the morning we can talk matters over more quietly; the street is not the place for this discussion."

Flora bowed humbly to Tom's verdict. "I'll come at eleven," she answered. The girl seemed so happy to know that the girls had not been drowned that she did not seem to care what punishment or disgrace might be in store for her.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE TELLING OF THE SECRET

"Must we see Flora Harris and her grandfather, Tom?" asked Madge the next morning. "We are having such a jolly time together. They will spoil everything."

The little captain was standing with her arm about Mrs. Curtis, her curly head close to her friend's beautiful white one. The room was filled with the re-united houseboat party, Miss Jenny Ann, Lillian, Phil and Eleanor, also Lieutenant Jimmy Lawton and his shadow, Jeff, the deaf and dumb boy. A little table in the center of the sitting room was piled with happy telegrams from fathers, mothers, sisters, cousins and aunts. The news that the houseboat party was really safe had spread everywhere.