Then she turned with swift steps and went down the hall and out the
door to her waiting limousine, and Lynn smiled wonderingly as she saw
her whirled away into the world again.
Lynn had not seen Mark.
Laurie Shafton had called upon her many times since those two trips
they had taken around the settlements and looking over his condemned
property, but she had been busy, or out somewhere on her errands of
mercy, so that Laurie had got very little satisfaction for his trouble.
But Mark had seen Lynn once, just once, and that the first time she had
gone with Laurie Shafton, as they were getting out of his car in front
of one of his buildings. Mark had slipped into a doorway out of sight
and watched them, and after they passed into the building had gone on,
his face whiter and sadder than before. That was all.
Marilyn was to spend only a month in New York, as at first planned, but
the month lengthened into six weeks before the friend whose place she
was taking was able to return, and two days before Marilyn was
expecting to start home there came a telephone message from her mother: "Lynn, dear, Mrs. Carter is very low, dying, we think, and we must find
Mark at once! There is not a minute to lose if he wants to see her
alive. It is a serious condition brought on by excitement. Mrs.
Harricutt went there to call yesterday while everybody else was at
Ladies' Aid. And Lynn, she told her about Mark! Now, Lynn, can
you get somebody to go with you and find Mark right away? Get him to
come home at once? Here is the last address he gave, but they have no
telephone and we dare not wait for a telegram. See what you can do
quickly!"
It was four o'clock in the afternoon when this message came. Lynn put
on a uniform of dark blue serge and a poke bonnet that was at her
disposal whenever she had need of protection, and hurried out.
She found the address after some trouble, but was told that the young
gentleman was out. No one seemed to know when he would return.
Two or three other lodgers gathered curiously, one suggesting a
restaurant where he might be found, another a club where he sometimes
went and a third laughed and called out from half way up the stairs: "You'll find him at the cabaret around the corner by ten o'clock
to-night if you don't find him sooner. He's always there when he's
in town."