Chapter IV

The following year was perhaps the hardest in Mrs. Lennox’s hard-worked life. And yet how much less wearisome it seemed than the previous period of enforced idleness. For she continued the rôle of little Joan’s nurse, and the baby’s delicate health made the post one of constant danger and difficulty. With the greatest care, the grandmother could not avoid some relapses, but on the whole the child strengthened steadily. Mrs. Lennox was justified in feeling that she was having, in theatrical parlance, “a big success.” Moreover her labour was sweetened by love, for she grew ridiculously attached to the ugly, dark-eyed baby.

The greatest trouble Mrs. Lennox encountered was not due to Joan, but to Joan’s mother. Imogen had come back after three months in Florida, with her health restored, but with no increase in her affection. The unnatural coldness persisted towards her child, and it seemed, indeed, to have extended itself towards her mother. Imogen appeared equally annoyed with Joan for monopolizing Mrs. Lennox and with Mrs. Lennox for being monopolized by Joan. “I’m sure, Mother, it can’t be necessary to fuss over that child the whole time,” she grumbled. “Everyone says you are spoiling her horribly.”

There was some justification for Imogen’s words. It almost seemed as though little Joan felt and resented the lack of maternal tenderness, for she certainly showed her least attractive side towards her young mother. The little thing positively shrieked with anger on the rare occasions that Imogen took her. It was rather surprising under these circumstances that Imogen should be so anxious to have her baby at home again. Mrs. Lennox would not admit it even to herself but she felt dumbly that her daughter’s desire had a certain tinge of spite.

Up till now the inevitable had been postponed. Each time Joan’s return home was discussed, some little attack of illness had deferred it. Another winter came, which Imogen again spent in Florida. When she returned Joan’s health was firmly established. She was a year and eight months old, and quite as big and sturdy as most children of her age. In mental development she was forward, for she had quite a repertoire of nursery rhymes that she used to repeat, copying her grandmother’s intonation in a curiously exact manner. When Imogen again announced that the child must come home, Mrs. Lennox could no longer protest. As Imogen said, people would think it odd for little Joan never to live with her parents.

So the doting grandmother prepared herself for the wrench. With this end in view, she had trained Bridget with great care, and the girl was now a competent and responsible nurse. Little Joan would be happy with this adoring attendant, Mrs. Lennox told herself, and she would go and see Baby every day. Yes, it would be almost the same as before.

The very first day of the new arrangement, when Mrs. Lennox went round to her daughter’s house, she found Bridget in tears. “It’s warning she’s given me, Ma’am dear,” the girl sobbed. The baby was asleep and Mrs. Vandeleur out, so the little nurse felt she could unburden herself freely.

“Warning? Do you mean that Mrs. Vandeleur has given you notice to quit?” Mrs. Lennox gasped in dismay.

“Sure, an’ it’s myself was dumbfounded. ‘What call have you to go putting me forth?’ I say out to her. ‘If it’s an older nurse you’re seeking, just take patience for a while and it’s I that will be giving you satisfaction.’ But Mrs. Vandeleur she does not hearken, and my words come beating back from the shut door. And well I knew, Ma’am dear, that your heart would be broken on you, and myself in dread of leaving the child in this sad, great house with no soul to give her a little word.” The poor girl hid her face in her apron and rocked to and fro.

Mrs. Lennox felt as though she would like to do the same. Indeed her eyes were full of tears. What a hateful thing it was to be merely a grandmother--a grandmother with no rights. But, at any rate, if they made her little Joan ill again, she would take her away, whatever anyone said. Joan was her baby, _hers_, she thought rebelliously, not Imogen’s, nor John Vandeleur’s. What had they ever done for her? She had saved the child’s life; Dr. Fletcher himself admitted it. She had won her baby by this year of work and devotion.

As far as the little one’s health was concerned, Mrs. Lennox’s fears were fortunately groundless. Nurse Cooper, who replaced the sorrowing Bridget, had retained her brains despite her mechanical training, and although she was starched, she was also sensible. It was really rather a triumph that Joan kept well, for the baby fretted desperately after her grandmother and Bridget. “I’ve never seen a child of that age care so much,” Nurse Cooper said in surprise. She related that at night she would hear the little girl sobbing to herself for an hour at a time, “M’ant my Gwanny, m’ant my Gwanny.” The baby’s joy whenever Mrs. Lennox appeared, her woe at Granny’s departure, were very touching. But Nurse Cooper found them irritating, and Mrs. Lennox could not help feeling that the nurse’s attitude was justified. Apart from all question of jealousy, such scenes must be bad for the child. “I must keep away,” Mrs. Lennox resolved miserably.

The apartment in the Dorset had seemed lonely and dreary that year before Joan came. Now it seemed even lonelier and drearier. Constantly Mrs. Lennox fancied that she heard the patter of little feet beginning in the hall, and then realized that there were no little feet to patter. In the evening she found herself tiptoeing into her own bedroom--when noise no longer mattered. Once or twice at night, hearing some slight sound, she sleepily switched on the light and glanced down at the cot beside her--the cot that was no longer there.

Life became so unbearable that Mrs. Lennox had serious thoughts of seeing Mr. Hobson and begging him to let her go back on the stage. Of course she could not expect him again to offer to star her; indeed, he had been so angry at her not playing in the ‘Haunted Homestead,’ that she wondered if he would give her any part, however small. And how was she to manage on the salary that had formerly sufficed, she who had now grown accustomed to an income ten times as large? But far more than the money question, there weighed with her the fact that the stage meant an irrevocable separation from Joan. Nurse Cooper seemed sufficiently satisfactory, but then Nurse Cooper was not a fixture. Suppose Joan, at any time, had another nurse who let her get ill, who positively illtreated her! Imogen would never know; she might not even care. No, she could not desert her little darling, the grandmother decided.

When Imogen asked her to go with her to Europe, it came as an escape. Mrs. Lennox had again the glad feeling of being needed, for Imogen hated travelling alone, and John Vandeleur could not leave his work. Perhaps when she and her daughter were alone together, this new, hard coldness would drop from Imogen; there might even be a return of the clinging affection that she had shown before the baby’s birth. As for little Joan, as Mrs. Lennox could not see her, she might as well be in Europe, she felt. For, as she grudgingly admitted, Nurse Cooper did seem successful over her darling’s health. Often in the evenings, if she were at her daughter’s house, Mrs. Lennox would creep up to the night nursery, and watch the sleeping child. Even her critical eye had never detected anything amiss. Imogen talked spaciously of England, France, Switzerland, perhaps the Italian lakes. They were to go to Paris and the Paris theatres, for apparently abroad the ban would be raised. All her life long Mrs. Lennox had wanted to see the great French actresses, the Théâtre Français. It shone as a fairyland of enchantment before her gaze.

They were away five months. It was, of course, very interesting, but the total feeling that remained was one of disappointment. After the first novelty had worn off, Mrs. Lennox got very tired of the daily round of sightseeing, and of perpetual motion without the joy of performing. Even the Paris theatres had not been sufficient compensation. The acting itself had come up to all that Mrs. Lennox had expected; it was a liberal education, she felt with a glow of enthusiasm. But an education for what? It was little use her learning how to improve her acting, if she were never to act. Neither had the old intimacy with her daughter returned. Imogen evidently liked to have her mother, and was affectionate, but in a distant, cold way. How Mrs. Lennox longed for little Joan’s soft, rapturous hugs--almost as much as she longed for a season of hard, theatrical work.

On their return to New York, Mrs. Lennox found that the difficulty with regard to her granddaughter had largely solved itself. Little Joan certainly recognized “Gwanny,” and gave one of her rare, illuminating smiles. But naturally the old devotion no longer existed. The baby shyly turned to Nurse Cooper, of whom she seemed to be fond, and who had certainly taken good care of her charge. Indeed the long summer at the Vandeleur’s “log” mansion in the Adirondacks had developed the child surprisingly.

When Joan was three and a half years old, Nurse Cooper left. She did not care for children as they got older, she said. What she really liked was “an infant from the month.” This attachment to an age rather than to a child seemed a curious point of view to Mrs. Lennox. Like the rest of the household, however, she regretted the nurse’s departure, although Joan herself bore it with more equanimity than they had expected. They regretted it still more as time passed and brought no satisfactory successor. During the next eighteen months five nurses and two children’s maids passed rapidly across the Vandeleur’s nursery stage. There was constant trouble about Joan’s appearance, for Mrs. Vandeleur was exacting, although no amount of dressing would make the dark, heavy-looking child anything but plain. And if the nurses toiled to satisfy the mother, then Joan was obstreperous. “I don’t feel like that sort of frock,” she stormed one day, and tore the dainty, embroidered Paris dress from neck to hem.

For little Joan was not an easy child to manage. Her bursts of passion, her clumsiness, her sullen revolt at society manners made her the despair of nurses. One or two tried indulgence, and the child only became more and more unbearable; one or two tried severity and Joan promptly fell ill. At this point Mr. Vandeleur always stepped in with the simple expedient of dismissal. Meanwhile Mrs. Lennox stood aside. She felt that her presence would only make the difficult situation more difficult.

About this time Imogen began to entertain on a larger scale, and more continuously, than she had ever done before. Indeed, her whole character seemed to have changed since the first year of her marriage, or perhaps it had only developed. As her husband played increasingly less part in her life, it was not surprising that society played increasingly more. “Nature abhors a vacuum”--how else was she to fill her time? She had no work and she had never cared for her child. Ambition may be a vice or a virtue, but Imogen certainly possessed it in considerable measure. Once embarked on a social career, she determined to excel in it. In order to do this, she found a train of admirers was considered indispensable, and so she deliberately set to work to acquire this necessary appendage. Nor was it altogether easy, for Imogen, despite her loveliness, was not particularly attractive to young men. Although she had always liked admiration, she had honestly never taken the faintest interest in the admirer, and her attitude was, no doubt, felt and resented by her male acquaintances. Coldness and lack of sympathy are defects that the egotism of youth finds hard to forgive. Naturally John Vandeleur had not been included in the category of those repelled by Imogen’s cool indifference; rather it had been her little air of reserved dignity that had first overcome him. Now all this was changed, for Imogen adopted an attitude of languishing sweetness, which, if at first assumed, soon became a second nature. Coupled with her beauty and her wealth, it attained the object she desired, and one or more gilded youths were now in constant attendance. The indiscretion that marked her intercourse with them was amazing, but, probably, her lack of natural charm drove her to greater lengths than a less reserved woman with the same ambition would ever have allowed herself. Incidentally the transformation destroyed the last vestige of respect that John Vandeleur had retained for his young wife.

It was when Joan was five and a half that Mrs. Vandeleur decided on having a great New Year’s Eve fête. Her husband was unenthusiastic; he did not like entertaining the “rabble,” he said. But it was only when his wife broached the idea of turning the whole house into a miniature _petit Trianon_ that he absolutely put down his foot. Imogen must be satisfied with an ordinary reception; he would not have any of these freak shows. When the morning of the great day arrived Mrs. Lennox went round to see her daughter and proffer her assistance, which she knew would be rather condescendingly refused. A swarm of men were already in possession, putting up awnings, carrying palms, moving pianos, and so with some difficulty Mrs. Lennox made her way upstairs to the boudoir. There she found the usually calm Imogen pacing up and down in a state bordering on distraction.

What could have happened? Mrs. Lennox speculated. Had the chef eloped with the housekeeper? Had the world-famous violinist engaged for the evening suddenly refused to play? Had John vetoed the whole soirée? “My dear, what is the matter?” she gasped.

“It’s that miserable child.” Imogen’s tone was furious. “She has never been anything but a nuisance. Now, she’s taken this opportunity to develop measles. And John refuses to allow her to be sent to a nursing home or a hospital. I must use the nursery wing to-night, and even if I didn’t, people are so absurdly afraid of infection. If anyone gets measles a year hence they will say it’s my fault. Besides if Joan stays here, I might catch it myself. John has no consideration for me whatever.”

“My dear child, you’ve had measles; you are very unlikely to catch it again,” her mother interposed. “But how is Joan? Is she real sick? What’s her temperature? Can I see her? Is she too ill to be moved?”

“Of course not.” Imogen was replying to the last of her mother’s string of excited questions. “The doctors call it a very mild case. It’s just John’s pig-headed obstinacy that he won’t let her go. I’ve told him again and again that the child would be better cared for in an institution, but he only repeats that no Vandeleur has ever been in one. What’s the advantage of Joan being here? Of course I can’t risk the infection, and John’s never at home, and she hates her new maid. Oh, do go down, Mother, and see if you can persuade John to let her go to a nursing home. He is in the library.”

“Do you think he would let Joan come to me?”

Imogen’s face cleared magically. “Oh, yes, yes, that’s the very thing. How stupid of me not to think of it. John can’t find anything to object to in that. Let us come and talk to him at once.” She led the way downstairs.

This time before taking the child, Mrs. Lennox laid down her conditions. She was not going to have either her affection or Joan’s so cruelly uprooted a second time. Now the child was five years old, a solution was not so difficult. “If Joan comes to me now, some arrangement must be made for my seeing her after she returns home. It nearly broke my heart giving her up before.” Mrs. Lennox’s voice trembled.

John Vandeleur looked up quickly. He realized that this was something that with all his money he could not buy for the child. “But, surely, Mrs. Lennox,” he urged, “this house is always open to you? You could see Joan here?”

“No, it is too difficult. Nurses and governesses resent it. They think me an old nuisance. The only scheme would be for Joan to be brought to my apartment. Could you spare her for one day every week?”

John Vandeleur rarely saw a case from anyone’s point of view but his own. Once he did so, even his enemies allowed him a sense of justice. He agreed without demur to his mother-in-law’s demand. As for his wife, there was little to which she would not have consented to escape from the predicament. “Of course--well, that’s settled,” was all Imogen said, as, with a sigh of relief, she ordered the automobile to be brought round at once. “Though I suppose it will all have to be disinfected,” she grumbled. “Joan is really too troublesome.”

Probably the child had never been so happy as in the month that followed. As her mother had said, Joan had the disease very lightly, although she was rigorously kept in Mrs. Lennox’s apartment in order to placate the outraged officials at the Dorset. The child’s old devotion to her grandmother must have merely lain dormant, for in a day or two it showed itself again; intensified, indeed, by her present five-year-old knowledge of absence and change. Even Bridget was there to complete the happy circle, for on her return from Europe, it had suddenly occurred to Mrs. Lennox to take the girl into her own service and thus blessedly replace the mechanical Palmer.

But in addition to the old happiness that the little granddaughter had brought to Mrs. Lennox, there was now a new happiness. For, ridiculous as it sounded, she found the child was now not only a pet but a companion, an intellectual stimulus. It had begun one day when she had heard Joan murmuring to herself, and by catching a word here and there, realized that a pretended scene was taking place between a mother and a naughty child. Presently it became so dramatic that Mrs. Lennox grew quite interested. “Shall I take a part?” she asked. “I mean I’ll be one of them; I’ll be the little girl and you are my mother.”

Joan had turned rather red. Much rebuke from nurses for “muttering” and “silly nonsense” had made her shy. “Can you play games like that, Granny?” she asked doubtfully. “Anyway, you can try,” she conceded.

Mrs. Lennox gave unexpected satisfaction. Several times the child broke into a laugh of pleasure. “You do it very well, Granny,” she told her graciously. Only once was the grandmother pulled up. “Aren’t you crying like a baby, not like a person of five?” Joan admonished. That evening when the little girl was in bed, her grandmother saw the great dark eyes resting upon her. “You’re very int’rusting, you know, Granny,” Joan murmured with a sigh of content.

If Joan was pleased with her grandmother’s dramatic power, Mrs. Lennox was more than pleased, she was startled by that of Joan. Partly to test the child, she began to say little pieces of poetry to her. Joan picked them up at once, but instead of the usual childish sing-song delivery, she first copied her grandmother’s enunciation and then improved upon it. Surely this was quite unusual, Mrs. Lennox told herself with growing excitement. She cudgelled her brains to remember her own powers as a child. Occasionally there had been a little performer in the theatrical companies, though never one as young as Joan. She was sure that these children had been more trouble to teach, that they had never shown this amazing initiative. But what would her son-in-law say, Mrs. Lennox felt uneasily. The poetry was discontinued, to Joan’s annoyance. “Never mind, I’ll soon learn to read it for myself,” she said defiantly.

Even the sad return home, mitigated only by the Wednesday visit to her grandmother, did not make little Joan forget her resolution. Mr. Vandeleur had hardly realized his daughter was back, when he was stopped in the hall one morning by a determined-looking small girl. “I must have a governess, please, and to learn to read.”

“Eh, what, aren’t you very young?”

“No, I’m more than five. Five isn’t young, it’s old.”

John Vandeleur gave an unusual laugh. “Old is it? Well, what do you want to learn to read for?” he added jocularly.

His daughter looked at him with contempt. “I want to learn to read so as to be able to read. You read books. There are a lot of int’rusting things in books.”

The application was successful, for a governess was found in the shape of a Miss Leveridge, a mild and inefficient lady. At first she was enthusiastic about her pupil’s progress, for Joan certainly learnt to read with astonishing rapidity. But there she stuck. Miss Leveridge hopefully produced a copybook; Joan found it difficult, and after one or two attempts, entirely refused any further efforts. The multiplication table met with no greater success; indeed, the mere mention of twice two brought a sullen look to her little face. “It’s all silly, and doesn’t mean anything. How can you say it?” she demanded.

Miss Leveridge cajoled and threatened, but all to no purpose. Months passed--a summer was again spent in the Adirondacks, and Joan’s sixth birthday came and went, but her learning remained stationary. When they were once more settled in Fifth Avenue, Miss Leveridge decided that she must take more drastic measures. “If you won’t even try to do your lessons, Joan, I shall have to punish you,” she said. “Unless you learn your twice times table by next Wednesday, I shall not let you go and see your Grandmamma.”

The child looked up startled. “You can’t stop that. It’s settled.”

“Oh yes, I can. I shall not take you there. And I shall tell Christine that she is not to take you either. You know you could not go alone.”

Joan did not argue further. Neither was there any improvement in the lessons. On Tuesday the decree was made final. Still Joan made no comment. “Perhaps after all she does not care very much,” Miss Leveridge reflected. “It is not as though she had any little companions there.”

It was in the half hour between the lessons and the daily walk on the following morning that Joan disappeared. Miss Leveridge had sent her in to Christine to be dressed and taken out. Christine, who was washing one of the child’s embroidered frocks in another room, thought that she was still safe with Miss Leveridge. At last, as no summons came, the maid went to fetch her. There were exclamations and explanations. An investigation in the night nursery showed that the child’s coat and hat were gone. The things had evidently been pulled out in desperate haste; one glove was still lying on the floor. Still she might not have ventured out into the street. The nurseries were searched and then the whole house. Finally Miss Leveridge penetrated into the boudoir. Mrs. Vandeleur was lying on the brocaded empire couch, wearing an exquisite “rest gown.” “Oh, excuse me, have you seen Joan?” Miss Leveridge faltered. The poor lady was almost weeping in her agitation. “As you permitted me to punish her in that way, I told her that she could not go to her grandmamma’s to-day, but I am afraid she must have set off there unaccompanied.”

“Really she is a most troublesome child. I do not know what Mr. Vandeleur will say.” The mother was clearly more vexed than alarmed. “Go down and telephone to Mrs. Lennox. I suppose, by the way, you had told her that Joan was not to go there to-day. Say that I wish the child sent back at once.”

A minute later Miss Leveridge returned more perturbed than ever. “The janitor at the Dorset says that Mrs. Lennox has gone out for the day and the maid is out too. He has seen nothing of Joan.”

“Oh, but she must be there or on her way. Take a cab, Miss Leveridge, and go down yourself. It is really most tiresome. I must go out to lunch, and how can I if the child isn’t found? It seems to be one continual annoyance with her.”

Not only Miss Leveridge, but several of the servants started off in different directions to find the little truant. The neighbouring streets and the near part of Central Park were searched in vain. The Dorset was not much more than five minutes’ drive. When Miss Leveridge reached it, she found that, as the janitor had said, Mrs. Lennox’s apartment was locked up and deserted. Both Mrs. Lennox and the maid had gone out before ten, the man informed her. Why, Joan’s lessons had not ended until half past! Might the child have made a mistake and gone into another apartment, Miss Leveridge despairingly suggested. The janitor admitted not having been at his post during the last half hour or so, but scoffed at the possibility of Miss Vandeleur having made a mistake. She was a real bright little thing, he said, and knew her grandma’s door right here on the ground floor as well as he did himself. When she was brought, didn’t she always run on ahead and push the bell-button herself? Still, if Miss Leveridge thought Mr. Vandeleur would be better satisfied--. An exhaustive and exhausting search was made in every apartment of the Dorset.

When this failed, a message was sent to Mr. Vandeleur. Suddenly the matter was lifted into an affair of state. Instead of a few alarmed domestics wandering about aimlessly, the greater part of the New York detective force was put on to the job. Every constable in the neighbourhood was informed. The chief of police, after a strenuous five-minute visit from Mr. Vandeleur, motored up with him to Fifth Avenue. Imogen, dressed to go out to her lunch, was sitting in fuming indecision in the drawing-room, when suddenly she was electrified by the sight of her husband. It was the first time in their married life that he had ever come home in the morning. “Who was the last person to see Joan?” he asked in a tone of cold fury.

By four o’clock that afternoon posters were out giving a description of the child and offering five thousand dollars for her immediate recovery. In the evening papers the reward had gone up to ten thousand. The Fifth Avenue house teemed with strangers. A constant succession of queer looking individuals flowed into the library, ushered in on protest by apologetic footmen. There Mr. Vandeleur sat, calm and alert, a large map of New York before him. He collected and weighed evidence in a manner that extracted admiration even from the attendant detectives. For the time being Joan had replaced the mining industry. All Mr. Vandeleur’s business genius, his knowledge of the world, his power of organization, were turned on to his new job. As yet they had been unavailing. One clue after another broke down ludicrously. The child seemed to have disappeared in New York like a pebble thrown into a pool. The rippling circles of commotion grew ever wider but the stone was lost to sight.

Meanwhile, what had happened to little Joan? As everyone rightly guessed, she had taken advantage of the brief lack of supervision to escape and set off for her grandmother’s. She knew the way quite well, and even her little legs could do the distance in about twenty minutes. One or two people glanced at her as she passed, thinking such a well-dressed child was young to be out alone, but Joan was tall for her six years, and the quiet determination of her walk kept anyone from interfering with her. When she reached the Dorset, her friend the janitor was not visible. Rather relieved, she ran straight to her grandmother’s door and pushed the knob.

No one came. Rather surprised, she rang again. She could hear the bell tinkling inside, long and loudly, but still the door did not open. She tried again, with the same result. Granny and Bridget could not be there. A feeling of sick dismay came over her. Always on Wednesdays a welcoming Granny flung open the door; the possibility of her being out had not occurred to the child. Oh dear, what should she do? She felt sure that she would soon be missed at home. Miss Leveridge or Christine might at any moment appear. They would take her back. Perhaps, as punishment, they would not let her come to Granny next Wednesday either, or any Wednesday! Whatever happened she must see Granny first. Granny had promised that she should come every week, unless, of course, she were ill. If Granny were there it would be all right. Granny had promised.

The child rang again frantically and then stopped short, frightened at the noise she was making. Miss Leveridge might hear it; she might at this moment be coming down the street. If only she could hide somewhere for a little time, until Granny came home. Suddenly the child remembered that a few weeks ago Granny had taken her up to a dusty little room at the very top of the Dorset. It was her store room, Granny had said. They had got some scarves and great big jewels out of one of the trunks and they had both dressed up and had had a lovely game. Why should she not hide there, behind the boxes? She started for the elevator and then paused. The elevator boy was very nice, but he would probably ask inconvenient questions. No, she would go by the stairs, she decided. Once, when she was staying with Granny, the elevator had been out of order, and people had had to use the stairs. Granny had told her that you could go right up to the top that way. The fat little legs twinkled up the first few steps.

Her pace soon slackened. The flights seemed to go on and on interminably. Every now and then the child sat down to rest, but she was afraid to linger too long. Several times, as she wearily mounted, the elevator shot up or down. Once she nearly plunged into a party of people who were waiting to be engulfed by it on a landing. After that Joan peered out cautiously each time before emerging from the shelter of the actual stairway. This was quite deserted. Few people walk for choice up eighteen stories of a New York skyscraper. So the little girl toiled on unobserved.

By the time she got to the top her legs were aching horribly, and she had a queer little pain when she breathed. The nearness of security brought back her strength. She trotted along, turning down a corridor at right angles. Yes, this was the way, and there was the little door. The little door--but there were lots and lots of little doors all shut and all alike! How could she ever tell which one was Granny’s? She thought it must be the nearest one, so summoning her courage, she turned the first handle. The door would not open. She tried another and another with the same result.

Suddenly it occurred to her, that when they came that other time, Granny had had a key. Yes, Granny had unlocked the door before they went in and had locked it again when they left. And now she had no key. Even from Granny’s storeroom she was shut out. At any moment Miss Leveridge might come up and find her. She wanted to cry dreadfully, but she bit her lips to keep it in. One didn’t cry like a baby when one was six. But surely she heard footsteps in the distance. They seemed to be coming nearer. Oh, oh, what should she do?

The child looked about wildly. An expression was in her eyes like that of some little hunted animal. Then she noticed that one of the long line of doors stood a crack open. Doubtless some careless tenant had forgotten to lock it. She ran towards it softly and slipped in, closing the door behind her. At last safety was reached.

It was none too soon. The footsteps turned the corner and passed along down the corridor. Even with the shut door between, Joan’s heart beat fast. From being afraid to meet someone who would take her home, she had become afraid of meeting anyone. The fugitive’s nervous demoralization had gripped her. Only her Granny seemed a refuge in a world of foes. Some minutes passed before she grew composed enough to look round her hiding place. She had hoped, with a child’s faith, that it might, after all, be Granny’s room, but now she saw that it wasn’t. There were fewer trunks and more furniture. A number of children’s things gave it rather a home-like air--a folded up cot, a baby’s carriage, a discarded doll’s house. There was a pile of big books which Joan timidly approached. Why, they were children’s books, with pictures. This was a find indeed!

An hour or more passed and then the treasures began to pall. It must be past dinner-time, Joan felt; she was hungry. Besides she was cold. There was no steam heat in the storerooms, and although she had on her coat and hat, the autumn air was keen. Cautiously she opened the door and crept out, but one glance down the staircase sent her scurrying back. It was echoing with footsteps, and the elevator seemed to be shooting up and down continuously. Had she guessed that this energy betokened the search for her own small person, she would have been even more alarmed.

The afternoon was very long. Joan made one or two vain attempts at descent. The last time she was so nearly caught, that she determined not to risk it again. She would wait until it got quite dark and late. Then, when everyone would be shut in their homes, having that curious grown-up meal of late dinner, she could get safely down to Granny.

A fresh tour of discovery round the little room revealed the cot mattress rolled in a dust sheet. Joan wondered if the owner would mind its being unrolled and spread out. The floor had grown so very hard, and a high chair, that she had found, was rather cramping for a person of six. With immense effort, her wish was put into action. This was much more comfortable, Joan thought, as she seated herself upon the mattress. Then her head sank. In a few minutes she was sound asleep.

It was quite dark when Joan’s eyes again opened. She was shivering with cold. Why, all the bedclothes must have tumbled off! She groped out, and to her surprise, touched the floor. What had happened to her bed? “Christine, Christine,” she cried.

There was no answer. Christine must have gone away. A wild panic seized the little girl, the overpowering panic of childhood. And there were no bedclothes to pull over her face--nothing but this horrible enveloping blackness! Suddenly she remembered where she was. This was a storeroom in Granny’s house. She had only to walk downstairs and she would find Granny.

Remembrance had made her fears recede, but the thought of standing up in the dark and searching for the door, brought them surging back. She set her teeth. Unless she got up at once, she would never be able to do it. She stumbled forward and felt along the wall, panting with terror. Suppose something were standing behind her, something that would suddenly clutch round her neck. The child’s face was ashen when at last she opened the door.

The corridor was much more bearable. A light was shining from the top of the stairs. Joan ran towards it and found the whole descent quite pleasantly illuminated. Once or twice the lift passed her, bearing home late theatregoers, but she avoided it as she had done before. It wasn’t so tiring going down as coming up, but still it made the calves of her legs ache. She began to think that she would never reach the bottom, when, at last, she found herself on the ground floor. Again she rang at Granny’s door.

It opened at once--magically. She was caught up in Granny’s arms. Granny was kissing her, crooning over her. “I am sorry I am late, Granny, but it is Wednesday,” Joan began sedately, with a tinge of reproach. She did not know that her poor grandmother had been apprised of the disciplinary absence and so had sought comfort in an excursion with Bridget. Then suddenly she broke down. The two little hands clasped themselves at the back of Granny’s neck as though they would never loosen again. Her face was buried on Granny’s shoulder. “Oh keep me, Granny; Granny hold me. Don’t let them take me away.” The sobs grew hysterical.

The child was calmed when she found herself quickly undressed and put in Granny’s own bed. Obviously now no one could take her away. Mrs. Lennox had wrapped her in the blankets, and then, after agitatedly telephoning to John Vandeleur, set about filling hot water bottles to thaw the chilled little body, while Bridget hurried about, mingling her joyful tears with the milk she was warming. “Oh, golden God!” the Irish girl was exclaiming. “I’ll be burning candles from this out to the saints of glory.” The new, unknown phrases pierced little Joan’s exhaustion; her grandmother saw the childish lips repeating them. Then the little one turned her attention to the steaming bread and milk. How good it tasted! Almost before she had finished it, Joan was asleep.

Meanwhile the news of the truant’s return was being spread, not only over New York, but over the great United States. Along dozens of telephone and telegraph wires the message was carried. The tension at various police stations relaxed suddenly. Detectives yawned and sauntered off in search of homeward bound cars. Advertisement managers swore as the huge notices for the morning papers were cancelled. The special bill-posting brigade was dismissed, jubilant with a full night’s wages. In the Fifth Avenue house, tired servants drew curtains and made all fast for the night. Mr. Vandeleur folded up the map of New York; then he went up to his wife’s room. She was already in bed, her lovely disordered hair framing her face, soft and flushed with sleep. “What is it?” she asked drowsily.

“Joan is found,” was the laconic answer. Then Mr. Vandeleur, too, went to his room to bed.