The City of Fire - Page 117/221

But at last they finished the breakfast and shoved their chairs back to

go and look at the car. Mr. Severn and his wife had eaten long ago and

gone about their early morning duties, and it had been Marilyn's duty

to do the honors for the guests, so she drew a sigh of relief, and,

evading Laurie's proffered arm slid into the pantry and let them go

alone.

But when she glanced through the dining-room window a few minutes later

as she passed removing the dishes from the table, she saw Mark upon his

knees beside the car, looking up with his winning smile and talking to

Opal, who stood close beside him all attention, with her little boy

attitude, and a wide childlike look in her big effective eyes.

Something big and terrible seemed to seize Marilyn's heart with a

vise-like grip, and be choking her breath in her throat. She turned

quickly, gathered up her pile of dishes and hurried into the pantry, her

face white and set, and her eyes stinging with proud unshed tears.

A few minutes later, dressed in brown riding clothes exquisitely

tailored, and a soft brown felt hat, she might have been seen hurrying

through the back fence, if anybody had been looking that way, across

the Joneses' lot to the little green stable that housed a riding horse

that was hers to ride whenever she chose. She had left word with Naomi

that she was going to Economy and would be back in time for lunch, and

she hoped in her heart that when she returned both of their guests

would have departed. It was perhaps a bit shabby of her to leave it all

on her mother this way, but mother would understand, and very likely be

glad.

So Lynn mounted her little brown horse and rode by a circuitous way,

across the creek, and out around the town to avoid passing her own

home, and was presently on her way up to the crossroads down which

Laurie Shafton had come in the dark midnight.

As she crossed the Highway, she noticed the Detour, and paused an

instant to study the peculiar sign, and the partly cleared way around.

And while she stood wondering a car came swiftly up from the Economy

way past the Blue Duck Tavern. The driver bowed and smiled and she

perceived it was the Chief of Police from Economy, a former resident of

Sabbath Valley, and very much respected in the community, and with him

in the front seat, was another uniformed policeman!

With a sudden constriction at her heart Marilyn bowed and rode on. Was

he going to Sabbath Valley? Was there truth in the rumor that Mark was

in trouble? She looked back to see if he had turned down the Highway,

but he halted the car with its nose pointed Sabbath Valleyward and got

out to examine the Detour on the Highway. She rode slowly and turned

around several times, but as long as she was in sight his car remained

standing pointed toward the Valley.