time. I suppose I’ll have to tell you, though I meant it for a surprise when we get there, but we’re going out to get married, darling child. Mother’s baby wouldn’t desert her on her wedding morning, would she?” The tone was sweet and wheedling, one that had never before failed to touch the sensitive daughter’s sense of duty.
But Kerry stood unmoved, looked stonily at her silly parent.
“Mother! You couldn’t do that! You wouldn’t do that! You wouldn’t do that to my father!” she kept repeating in a toneless voice.
“Watch me! See if I won’t!”
Mrs. Kavanaugh flashed angry eyes at her child, and turning pranced out of the room, down the hall out of sight, and Kerry was left alone with her horror.
Chapter 3
Kerry stood for an instant listening to her mother’s retreating footsteps. Then she suddenly sprang to the window and looked down to the street. Yes, there was a cab waiting at the door, and while she looked she saw her mother come out and Sam Morgan help her into the cab. They were going, then, to get married. She felt the inevitable settle down upon her like a great awful weight that would crush her.
Frantically she threw up the window and leaned out shouting “Mother! Mother!” but the crowd of the city surged by and her voice was drowned in a myriad of noises. A stray passer-by glanced up, and wondering, watched her waving her hand, but the cab disappeared in traffic.
Lost! Lost! Lost!
Kerry’s beautiful little mother was lost to her!
Even if she dashed down the stairs without waiting for hat or coat and flew down the street after her it was too late to do anything now. She had no idea where they were going! She could never find them in that great city!
She closed the window suddenly and dropped back into a chair to cover her face with her hands and groan aloud. Oh, this was worse, infinitely worse than death. If she could see that lovely face of her little mother lying dead in a coffin over there in the room where her father had so recently lain, she would not feel such sorrow as surged over her now. Such righteous horror and indignation! The man that her father despised, after a few short weeks had taken his wife—had stolen her mother away! But worse than all, she had chosen to go with him of her own free will. The thought was almost more than the young heart could bear. Like one who has received a sickening blow she writhed under the first sharp pain.
But soon there came a prodding thought. What was to come next? Would they return? Here? Soon?
She must not be here when they came! She must get away quickly or it would be too late. She must never be caught in the power of Sam Morgan. She and her father’s book must get safely away where he never could find her.
She shuddered again as she remembered his hateful kisses on her lips, his coarse flabby face near to hers, his bold pop-eyes looking derisively into hers.
She staggered to her feet and went frantically to her room, half dazed, scarcely knowing what to do first.
Her papers and notes caught her glance, scattered in orderly array over her bed and table. Well, they were the first things to think of. They were like a part of her sensitive father; his work, the child of his brain, to be protected.
Hastily she went to work, schooling herself to be calm, to try to think coolly, dashing the unbidden tears away from her face, pushing back her red gold hair, she gathered the papers, each into its separate envelope as she had been trained. She put them all in the little brief case in which her father had kept them, locked it securely and dropped the key on its narrow black ribbon around her neck and inside her dress. Swiftly she put the cover on her typewriter and fastened it for carrying. Then she changed into her black dress.
A glance around her room showed very few things that were dear to her: some of her father’s books she cherished and had meant to keep always, especially some few rare bindings, and old first editions that he prized, and had told her were very valuable. Now she looked at them with infinite sorrow in her eyes, but went to them steadily and took them in her cold hands. She loved them, but they must be sacrificed. Beside them she had only five dollars in the world. They must be made to help her in this greatest emergency of her life. They must be turned into money for her immediate necessities.
Swiftly lest her heart should fail her she put them into a big bag of her father’s.
The rest of her packing took scarcely ten minutes.
She drew out the little trunk that had been hers when she was away at school, and which had been small enough to be stored under her bed. Into it she put her meager wardrobe, and the few little possessions that she prized most, all of them trifling gifts from her father at one time or another. There were a few snap shots they had taken when they ran away to the seashore for a day now and then, and one very good one of her father that she had taken with her own small camera. As she was about to close and lock her trunk she hesitated, then went out into the sitting room and got the large handsome photograph of her mother in its silver frame that stood on the desk in the sitting room. She packed it down beneath her garments. Then she locked her trunk and sat down to write a note. It was not an easy task. Love and indignation still fought in her breast. The tears streamed down her face and blistered the paper as she wrote.
Dear, Beautiful Little Mother, Good-by!
I am going away. You have driven me to do this. I can never be where that man is! You have done a dreadful thing! But Oh, I love you for you were the only little mother I had!
You must not try to find me for I will never come to be with you and him. But if you ever are in trouble and need me, write to Father’s old lawyer friend in London. When I know what I am going to do I will let him know how to communicate with me.
Your broken-hearted Kerry.
Kerry slipped fearfully into her mother’s room and laid this note on her mother’s bureau. Then she went down and got a man to come up and get her trunk and other baggage. Holding in her lap the precious brief case containing her father’s book, she rode away in the cab, her trunk behind, her typewriter at her feet, and the big bag of rare books on the seat beside her.
It was to a railway station she went first, where she checked her trunk and typewriter, and then taking another cab she drove far uptown to a little old book shop where her father had an old friend. Getting out with her two bags she paid the man, dismissed him, and went fearfully into the shop. Now, if her father’s friend were not in, what should she do next? And if he were not in and would not or could not buy her books, how was she to go any farther?
She opened the door and stepped into the sweet dim twilight of the book-lined shop. In the shadows of the book stalls, she saw three figures, one of the old man whom she had often seen when she came here with her father, the other two younger men. They were standing at opposite sides of the table each with a book open in his hand. They looked up as she entered.
The old man turned and came to meet her.
“Well, well, and whom have we here?” he said graciously. “Bless my soul if it isn’t Shannon Kavanaugh’s little lassie. Well, I’m glad to see you my child, glad to see you! And it’s a sorry day to see you in black! I can’t tell you how my heart aches for you! I miss your father coming in more than you would think.
