Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-07-13

EVIDENTLY Jane had been fully satisfied by the
- port of her husbands death, and evidently too she
had found consolation rather easy because the May OF
1894 less than two years after the announcement OF
John SCOTS death, found Mr. and Mrs Hiram Williams
giving dinner party. Hiram was getting important
too. He spoken of very respectfully as "the able
manager of the Darvel Brick Works, and his APP
peared in list of directors of the First National Bank
They living it appeared with James father in the
big house across the river Evidently, in this second
venture, the old had found son-inaw after his
own heart.
little later, early in June it appeared that Mrs.
Williams in delicate health and was going, with her
husband and her four yearold daughter to spend the
at Green Springs, resort the eastern shore
of Lake Michigan.
Pamela felt, somehow little uneasy about that,
if their going away just then, when the climax of her
search approaching took them out from under
her eye, might make it harder to follow them She be-
reading more infinitely as to make up by her own
for the absence OF details.
She read without any special interest, the curiousy
vague announcement that Miss Ada Harper had left
town indefinite visit to friends She read OF
Hirams return to Edmonton, and of his departure
few days later for Green Springs, and OF sudden trip
by old Peter Darvel to Chicago with quickening impa-
thence. Why wouldn't it happen, this thing she
the word @KIDNAPPED," probably in big black
letters alone at the top of the column peter Darvels
four old granddaughter disappears 1t would be
something like that
There! There were the black letters she was looking
for. But the word wasn't kidnapped; it was
DROWNED" That couldn't be it.
She would have turned straight by if the attraction
of the Darvel name had not by now become automatic
The news item beneath the big black heading so
brief that she had fairly read through before She real
lied fully its import. 1t dated Green Springs, and
this is what it said:
tragic accident resulted Yesterday in the drowning of
Jane Scott ouryear old daughter of Mrs Hiram Williams
and granddaughter OF our esteemed fellow townsma Mr.
not yet been received but understood that the child
toddled during moment OF nattention on the part
pier into the water The body. believe has already
been recovered and is expected that it will be brought
take place. probably Wednesday Darve
denee. Fuller particulars will be given later.
The whole community shares the grief of the stricken
mother and grandfather and extends them its sincere
sympathy.
Pamelas hand automatically reached out to turn the
page that she might go and read the fuller particu
lars that promised; but her eyes filled up with the
sudden tears of almost unbearable disappointment.
Where were her theories and her explanations now?
And what was the use OF reading any farther!
She dried her eyes, trying to summon sort of angry
contempt for her weakness to bolster up her
age. piled the dsordered volumes neatly the table
pulled down her VEIL rather glad of the protection
1t would give her from curious eyes and walked out of
the library
SHE was halfway back to the hotel when she stopped
short, clenched her hands, and uttered short,
despairing little sigh.
NO She said, under her BREATH q won't go back"
But what she had thought of was that the date
that iem the day of the report that Jane Scott
was drowned. was the nineteenth of June-her own
birthday
She did her best put of her mind she walked
slowly toward the hotel She wouldn't, she positive
y wouldn't torment herself any longer with that tan
talizng impossbility! 1t was an impossibity. John
Scott had died and Jane Scott had been drowned?
That all there about it, except uncanny
series of condolences To go hoping to prove,
with the aid of those condolences that her fathers
had once been John Scott and that she herself
the daughter of lane Darvel would be downright folly.
Yet the thing hung about her. buzzng in her like
an nslstent mosquito. Suppose it hadn't been true,
that report that little Jane Darvel had been drowned
Suppose she had wandered away and her father had
seized the chance take her. and the bere had
only guessed at drowning the explanation of her dis