CHAPTER IX

Nevertheless, when Emma Ellis came in to luncheon, a little early, the
third day following, she espied at Michael Daragh's place a letter with a
Boston postmark, addressed in a firm, small hand she knew. She was the
only person in the room and she had time to examine it thoroughly, even
as to thickness, before Mrs. Hills came in. It happened that there were
mail deliveries just before the three meal times and it was the
boarding-house keeper's guileless custom to sort and distribute letters
at the table, thus saving a wearisome climb and much pedestrianism
through long halls.

"Well, I've got a line from Jane and I'm free to say I'm relieved. I was
afraid she was sick or something, rushing off like that, rousing me out
of a sound sleep at six in the morning, just saying she was going out of
town. _I_ supposed, of course, she was going home to her Aunt Lydia
Vail."

"Didn't she?"

"No, she didn't." Mrs. Hills took the note out of her apron pocket and
consulted it. "No, she's going to Maine. Foot'n alone. Says she needs
quiet for some special work."

"Mr. Daragh has something from her, too." Emma Ellis stood behind the
Irishman's chair, her pale eyes lapping up the inscription.

"No!" said Mrs. Hills, advancing with interest, frank and unashamed. "You
don't say! Well, he has! Sure's you're a foot high! Well, now, that beats
me!"

Emma Ellis tucked in her lips in a way she had before making a certain
type of remark. "It is rather strange.... They were out walking in the
evening, and in the morning she left, precipitately."

"'Tis kinder queer," Mrs. Hills clucked. "Couldn't have quarreled or
anything--never paid enough attention to each other for that."

"Oh," said Emma Ellis in a hushed voice, "don't you think Miss Vail has
always devoted a great deal of attention to Mr. Daragh?"

"Well, Jane's a great one to make up to folks and be friendly; always
was, as a child. I can remember her, four years old, after her folks died
and she came to live with Miss Lydia. Wasn't afraid of anything or
anybody, ever. Used to slip out and run off down Main Street after a
peddler or a gypsy or anybody she took a fancy to. But--" she came back
into the present--"Mr. Daragh's been kinder queer these last two, three
days. But then, far's that goes, he's always queer. Oddest mortal I ever
met up with in all my born days. Odder'n Adam's off ox."

"If it is odd," said the Settlement worker,