Chapter VI: The Happiest Girl

Under the circumstances, there seemed to be nothing for Grail to do but await with what patience he could muster the return of Sergeant Cato; and as the afternoon slipped away with no report from the latter, he threw himself on a couch in the office at headquarters and presently drifted off into a dose. Worn out by his exertions, the strain he had been under, and his loss of sleep the night before, he was soon wrapped in a profound slumber; and, as nothing happened to disturb him, five o’clock still found him sleeping heavily.

Meanwhile, the train from Chicago, bearing the distressed daughter of the commandant, had arrived, and Major Appleby, who had gone down to meet her, could only return a gloomy shake of the head to the unspoken question of her wide, trouble-filled eyes.

“Don’t ask me anything now, my dear,” he said, in a low tone. “We are trying to keep the matter quiet for the present, and you can’t tell who might overhear us in this crowd. As soon as we get outside, though, you shall learn all there is to know. Mrs. Schilder is waiting for us in her car, and wants to take you to her home.”

“Mrs. Schilder?” The girl’s lips parted in a little gasp of surprise, for she had only a very slight acquaintance with the wife of the foundry manager.

“Yes,” the major explained. “Mrs. Appleby and I would have been delighted to have you with us, but it seemed preferable that you should not be at the fort, where you would be kept constantly upset by all sorts of unfounded rumors. So, as Mrs. Schilder pointed out that you would probably be more comfortable in her home than anywhere else, we accepted her invitation on your behalf.”

Miss Vedant hesitated a moment, then gave a slight shrug, as though to signify that it was a matter of indifference to her. Troubled and shaken as she was, she was in no mood to protest against any arrangement they might have made, and, anyway, it was too late now to draw back without seeming ungracious, for the major, by this time, was conducting her out through the tall, pillared entrance of the station, and she saw, a few steps away across the plaza, Mrs. Schilder waiting for them in the automobile.

Mrs. Schilder, modishly gowned, and undeniably beautiful, in a dark, foreign style, greeted the girl with just the proper touch of sympathetic restraint to put Meredith at her ease.

“I don’t want you to think me unduly urgent in this matter, my dear,” she said, “but I could not help feeling that if I were in your place I should want to be among friends who understood the situation. You must not regard yourself as a guest with us, either; you are to consider yourself at home, and do in all things just as you choose. At any rate,” she added, with a reassuring pressure of the hand, “give me the happiness of having you with me until your father is restored, which must certainly be within a few hours.”

Meredith glanced up eagerly. “You believe that?” she exclaimed, then turned as if for corroboration to Major Appleby, who sat with them in the tonneau.

The major cleared his throat. “We are at least very close on the trail of the Japanese spies who are undoubtedly responsible for the outrage,” he assented guardedly, “For a time we were at sea, thinking they had fled the city, but through a hint astutely obtained by Mrs. Schilder”--he bowed pompously toward that lady--“from her butler, who is also a Japanese, we are now confident that they are still in Brantford, and, therefore, with the efforts we are making, must be run to earth in very short time.”

“Japanese spies?” Meredith repeated. “So that is what is back of the affair? Remember, I know nothing except what was contained in your telegram. Please tell me all the circumstances,” she pleaded.

The major started to comply, with a labored, heavy account, but Mrs. Schilder tactfully interposed, and, taking the recital into her own hands, told in a few words the story of the occurrences at the foundry the night before.

“But why are Japanese spies suspected?” The girl’s brows wrinkled into a little frown. “I see nothing in all this to indicate such a theory. Did Captain Grail see any Japanese around?”

“He did not say so,” stiffly responded the major. “To tell you the truth, my dear, Captain Grail, beyond giving a bare account of the incident, declined to commit himself in any way, or even to confer with the other officers of the post over measures looking toward your father’s recovery.”

The girl stared at him almost incredulously. “Yet he must know more of what happened than anybody else,” she cried. A wave of hot indignation swept over her face at the thought that an officer so closely associated with her father could from any cause show indifference at such a crisis.

Involuntarily she drew back, with a hand on Mrs. Schilder’s arm. “Would you mind taking me out to the fort before we go to your house? I must see Captain Grail myself, and question him--now, at once. I cannot understand what he means by such an attitude.”

The major endeavored to dissuade her. “I doubt if it would do you any good,” he urged. Then, hesitating, he excused himself to Mrs. Schilder, and leaned over to whisper: “If you must know, my dear, Grail is not popular at the fort just now. We have, in short, excellent reasons to believe that he himself is implicated in the colonel’s disappearance.”

Involuntarily she drew back, with a little cry of unbelief. “Impossible!” she declared. “You cannot realize what you are saying, major!”

“I not only realize, but reiterate it,” he said solemnly. “More than that, I have stated the case mildly to you, for we have evidence to prove that his was the crafty brain which hatched up this whole so-called mystery. Now, I am sure, you will see the futility of attempting to gain any information from him.”

“No.” She shook her head. “If what you say is true, then I think there is more reason than ever that I should see Captain Grail.”

With an air of determination, she leaned once more toward Mrs. Schilder, who had discreetly turned her eyes away during the colloquy, and was gazing out over the side of the car. “I am afraid the major must consider me very self-willed,” she said, “but I am going to ask you again if I may not be driven to the post?”

Her hostess immediately bent forward to give the desired order to the chauffeur, and, despite Appleby’s fuming, the car was whirled around and headed for the new destination. Back down Carney Street they sped, past the courthouse and city hall, and finally reached the fort.

Inquiry having developed that Grail was in his office at headquarters, the major, with an air of stern virtue, prepared to conduct Meredith to him; but again Mrs. Schilder suavely interposed.

“Perhaps Miss Vedant would prefer to see the adjutant alone,” she said, laying a detaining hand on Appleby’s arm.

Meredith gave her a quick glance of gratitude, and assuring them both that she needed no one with her during the interview, hurried on through the door.

A moment later Grail was awakened by the announcement, “A lady to see you, sir,” and he rose up, blinking and confused, to find her standing before him.

“You?” he cried in amazement, for he had never dreamed that Appleby and the crowd would permit her to come near such a pariah as himself. “You, Meredith!”

Ormsby Grail had dreamed dreams centering about this fair-haired, slender daughter of his colonel. He had seen her blossom from the child he had once taken on his knee into a charming woman, and learned to love her. But he had refrained from whispering any word of his love to her. She was too young, he told himself; she could not possibly know her own mind. Even when it was decided that she should go to Chicago for a year to cultivate her remarkable voice, he still had not ventured to speak. He would wait a little longer, he decided. She seemed to him no more than a child.

So, although he wrote to her frequently, in a friendly, brotherly sort of fashion, and never let a week go by without some remembrance from him, he sedulously concealed from her the real state of his feelings--or thought he did--and never dared visit her in Chicago.

Half extending his arms, he took a hasty step toward her, then halted abruptly, the recollection sweeping over him of what she must have heard.

“You wished to see me?” he asked, in a controlled voice.

“Yes.” Her glance met his steadily, although she was somewhat nervously twisting her hands in their brown suede gloves. “I want to ask you about father.”

“Haven’t the others told you?” he inquired. Then, as she nodded, he added, with a touch of defiance: “I suppose you have heard, too, what they are saying about me?”

“I have heard.”

“And do you believe it?”

“If I believed part of it,” she said, “I would be the happiest girl in the world!”