Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-06-15
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And vet the secret was there all the time. Suppose
she never should succeed in finding it?
Oddly enough, there something tonic in the idea.
The future didn't look quite empty, now that she
had task before her that going to call for the exer
else of all her powers.
She would set about finding who she was, who her
father had been She knew she wanted to do that felt
sure indeed that he would have wanted her to. There
was nothing shameful in the secret. OF that she felt
sure Indeed no msgiving all on that score arose to
trouble her She would do her best to find out.
And if she failed-why, then she could just go on
being Pamela Harris.
She could earn living-oh in half dozen ways
She had three Continental languages that she could
write and speak easily as English. She was COM
petent stenographer. Her father had dictated
long romance of adventure to her. and then had
published it The manuscript must be in one of their
trunks in Chicago And then she was telegra-
pher. One lazy summer, when they had had nothing
better to do her father had installed pair of keys and
saunders in the cottage he had rented, and for two
months their principal communication had been in
Longs and Shorts She knew the Morse code well
her alphabet Or if she wanted to capitalize her know
edge OF the travel of the world, and her skill
courier she could probably get job as travelling COM
pan1On to somebody.
But she would try to solve her own problem first
And the first step in that attempt was to go to Chicago
get their trunks out of storage, and make careful
search She to find something there that would
furnish at least a clue to her identity.
X7HAT with her getting clothes and making her
w arrangements for sailing, her week in London was
pretty well occupied But the voyage back to America
least the first two three days of It, was trial that
tested all her tort1tude
They had spent great deal of time at sea- she and
her father. His deck chair had always been pulled up
close beside hers And during these long days when she
was alone or ianked on each side by strangers the
sense of loss almost lntOerabe.
She tried to read but no book seemed able to hold
her thoughts She tried to occupy them with the mys
terry that waiting for her in Chicago but that led
straight back the old trail, to her fathers youth and
her early recolections OF him.
At last, sheer self defense, she took to thinking
about John Stanield The old, illogical resentment over
hon and of her
thoughts the day that had been her father last was
gone She saw how illogical 1t was and regretted it
As she thought back the days that followed her
fathers death she realized how kind he had been to her
There had been flowers evcrywhcre,not Just the native
blossoms: flowers that must have come from London
at his bidding And besides that, there were host of
little klnnesses whose very existence she realized only
retrospect that must have sprung from his thought
full preoccupation for her comfort.
She had not thanked him; had not SAID goodby
to him; had not learned his until the land
lady said that Mr. Santed had left the night before
He was gone, and unless Fate interviewed once more
there wasn't much chance that she would ever see HIM
again.
Well, wasn't she used to that? Hadn't her life been
made up of meeting people and then losing them com
pctev, But he, somehow wasn't that kind of person.
The talk the railing of the bridge that mig INT WASH
the sort of talk she'd ever had with anyone else.
If she utterly alone and riendess today, it was
her doing. There person in the world
who had held out hand to her, and she hadn't taken
It. She realized that she had meant to lose
him completely; then when. on the first day out, she
had scanned the passenger list eagerly it had been
in the unacknoWedged hope of finding his name in it.
She kept away well she could from the other
passengers and her mourning garb protected her and
made it easier. The only exception she made
favor Of an older woman who evidently unhappy
as herself. This and her husband had the
st.teroom directly across the passage from her
Pamela hadn't very nuc liked her at first There
hard, steely look about her that carried itself out
her rather Overeaborate costume But all one after
noon when she lay in her cabin she had heard sound
OF quiet sobbng from the cabin the way and that
furnished her with a explanation for the woman