The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1931-02-13
The Sealed Trunk

The doctor had been giving some in
structions to the nurse. Rhoda inter-
cepted him on his way to the door.
"Will he wake up again?" she asked
him.
He looked at her steadily moment
before he answered. "No, my dear
child, he won't. This Is the end" And
then, surprisingly, his eyes filled up
with tears. you're only little girl !"
he said, as If it were a discovery.
wont you let me get some woman
here, in the hotel to take you In until
your friends can come and get you?
And won't you let me telegraph now,
for themY'
She told him, afraid her voice was
betraying her sudden panic, that she
would telegraph and that she'd rather
go and lie down by herself In her own
room. The words must have sounded
all right, since he assented, though a
little obviously.
Even with the door shut she could
hear her fathers terrible breathing.
She wanted to think, but she could
not. She could only listen. It lasted a
long time. When 1t stopped the cessa-
ton brought her bold upright in bed,
unable to draw her own breath for
matter Of seconds. 1t came at last
with a sob of relief.
She cried, rather peacefully until,
after while, she heard the nurse
coming to tell her. She buried her
face in the crook Of her arm and lay
perfectly still, and the nurse, believing
her asleep, went away again, shutting
the door after her.
At that, quite suddenly, her mind
went to work. What had her father
been trying, to tell her, in that last
flicker of his consciousness? But
thinking about that, she decided at
last, wouldn't do any good. The frag-
mentary words worked out to two op-
posite meanings.
He might, Of course, have been tell
ing her to go to Uncle William and
that she'd find his address among his
papers. But he might have meant that
she was to look out for Uncle Will
liam and not let him get possession of
the papers. And since her uncle was
almost as much an ogre to her as he
had been four years ago, it was the
latter Interpretation that she adopted.
What the doctor had said was the
thing that frightened her worst.
you're only little girl !"
That, Of course, was nonsense. She
was sixteen and lots Of people thought
she was older than that. She could
pass for eighteen, well enough. He'd
said that only because he was sorry
for her. But sixteen was still child
according to law. You weren't of age
until you were eighteen-or was it
twenty-one? And If Uncle William
knew where she was and learned of
her fathers death, he'd come and get
her, and she wouldn't be able to get
away from him. Well then, the only
safe thing for her to do was to dis
appear before he had time to find
out what had happened.
Looking back now on those days,
after the passage of two years so
packed with life that they seemed
longer than the four that had pre-
coded them, she wondered that she,
mere child of sixteen, had been able
to follow out that resolution so stead
lily that no one had tried to put an
obstacle in her path.
Except for a telegram, purporting
to come from Florabel in Denver,
which she had slipped out early that
morning and dispatched to herself,
she had nothing to show anyone as an
indication that she had friend in the
woodland the telegram wasn't much
good since If you looked at it closely
you saw that it hadn't come from
Denver at all.
She couldn't have done 1t, of course,
If she had not had plenty of money,
and, likely enough, not then If the
hotel people hadn't been accustomed
to her paying the bills. She paid
everybody in cash, that morning, and
when this was done she had little
over three hundred dollars left, fifteen
twenty-dollar bills and a few small
ones.
The papers her father had tried to
tell her something about had always