had descended upon her, the reaction of cumulative nervous stress, anesthetizing her will, her desires, her very limbs. She was purposeless, ambitionless, except to lie and rest and seek for some resolution of peace out of the tangled web wherein her own willfulness had involved her.
“The best possible thing,” said Camilla Van Arsdale. “I’ll write your people that you are staying on for a visit.”
“Yes; they won’t mind. They’re used to my vagaries. It’s awfully good of you.”
At noon came Banneker to see Miss Welland. Instead he found a curiously reticent Miss Van Arsdale. Miss Welland was not feeling well and could not be seen.
“Not her head again, is it?” asked Banneker, alarmed.
“More nerves, though the head injury probably contributed.”
“Oughtn’t I to get a doctor?”
“No. All that she needs is rest.”
“She left the station yesterday without a word.”
“Yes,” replied the non-committal Miss Van Arsdale.
“I came over to tell her that there isn’t a thing to be had going west. Not even an upper. There was an east-bound in this morning. But the schedule isn’t even a skeleton yet.”
“Probably she won’t be going for several days yet,” said Miss Van Arsdale, and was by no means reassured by the unconscious brightness which illumined Banneker’s face. “When she goes it will be east. She’s changed her plans.”
“Give me as much notice as you can and I’ll do my best for her.”
The other nodded. “Did you get any newspapers by the train?” she inquired.
“Yes; there was a mail in. I had a letter, too,” he added after a little hesitation, due to the fact that he had intended telling Miss Welland about that letter first. Thus do confidences, once begun, inspire even the self-contained to further confidences.
“You know there was a reporter up from Angelica City writing up the wreck.”
“Yes.”
“Gardner, his name is. A nice sort of fellow. I showed him some nonsense that I wrote about the wreck.”
“You? What kind of nonsense?”
“Oh, just how it struck me, and the queer things people said and did. He took it with him. Said it might give him some ideas.”
“One might suppose it would. Did it?”
“Why, he didn’t use it. Not that way. He sent it to the New York Sphere for what he calls a ‘Sunday special,’ and what do you think! They accepted it. He had a wire.”
“As Gardner’s?”
“Oh, no. As the impressions of an eye-witness. What’s more, they’ll pay for it and he’s to send me the check.”
“Then, in spite of a casual way of handling other people’s ideas, Mr. Gardner apparently means to be honest.”
“It’s more than square of him. I gave him the stuff to use as he wanted to. He could just as well have collected for it. Probably he touched it up, anyway.”
“The Goths and Vandals usually did ‘touch up’ whatever they acquired, I believe. Hasn’t he sent you a copy?”
“He’s going to send it. Or bring it.”
“Bring it? What should attract him to Manzanita again?”
“Something mysterious. He says that there’s a big sensational story following on the wreck that he’s got a clue to; a tip, he calls it.”
“That’s strange. Where did this tip come from? Did he say?”
Miss Van Arsdale frowned.
“New York, I think. He spoke of its being a special job for The Sphere.”
“Are you going to help him?”
“If I can. He’s been white to me.”
“But this isn’t white, if it’s what I suspect. It’s yellow. One of their yellow sensations. The Sphere goes in for that sort of thing.”
Miss Van Arsdale became silent and thoughtful.
“Of course, if it’s something to do with the railroad I’d have to be careful. I can’t give away the company’s affairs.”
“I don’t think it is.” Miss Van Arsdale’s troubled eyes strayed toward the inner room.
Following them, Banneker’s lighted up with a flash of astonished comprehension.
“You don’t think—” he began.
His friend nodded assent.
“Why should the newspapers be after her?”
“She is associated with a set that is always in the lime-light,” explained Miss Van Arsdale, lowering her voice to a cautious pitch. “It makes its own lime-light. Anything that they do is material for the papers.”
“Yes; but what has she done?”
“Disappeared.”
“Not at all. She sent back messages. So there can’t be any mystery about it.”
“But there might be what the howling headlines call ‘romance.’ In fact, there is, if they happen to have found out about it. And this looks very much as if they had. Ban, are you going to tell your reporter friend about Miss Welland?”
Banneker smiled gently, indulgently. “Do you think it likely?”
“No; I don’t. But I want you to understand the importance of not betraying her in any way. Reporters are shrewd. And it might be quite serious for her to know that she was being followed and hounded now. She has had a shock.”
“The bump on the head, you mean?”
“Worse than that. I think I’d better tell you since we are all in this thing together.”
Briefly she outlined the abortive adventure that had brought Io west, and its ugly outcome.
“Publicity is the one thing we must protect her from,” declared Miss Van Arsdale.
“Yes; that’s clear enough.”
“What shall you tell this Gardner man?”
“Nothing that he wants to know.”
“You’ll try to fool him?”
“I’m an awfully poor liar, Miss Camilla,” replied the agent with his disarming smile. “I don’t like the game and I’m no good at it. But I can everlastingly hold my tongue.”
“Then he’ll suspect something and go nosing about the village making inquiries.”
“Let him. Who can tell him anything? Who’s even seen her except you and me?”
“True enough. Nobody is going to see her for some days yet if I can help it. Not even you, Ban.”
“Is she as bad as that?” he asked anxiously.
“She won’t be any the better for seeing people,” replied Miss Van Arsdale firmly, and with that the caller was forced to be content as he went back to his own place.
The morning train of the nineteenth, which should have been the noon train of the eighteenth, deposited upon the platform Gardner of the Angelica City Herald, and a suitcase. The thin and bespectacled reporter shook hands with Banneker.
“Well, Mr. Man,” he observed. “You’ve made a hit with that story of yours even before it’s got into print.”
“Did