"We've got a gentleman in camp with a badly broken leg, and he asked us
to come," Phil went on to say, narrowly watching the eager face of the
woman, who he could see was by breeding a lady, and a very handsome one
too no doubt, though just at that time she looked woe-begone, with her
long hair hanging down her back to dry, and her khaki outing skirts
bedraggled. "He's been worrying all the night, and nearly crazy because
he was afraid some one would be caught in the storm, some one he
expected was coming to find him."
Waves of color passed over her face as she heard how the gentleman had
been so deeply concerned.
"Would you mind telling me his name?" she asked Phil; and somehow the
boy was reminded of Mazie when he looked more closely at her.
"He has been calling himself John Newton all along," he remarked; "but
just this morning he admitted that his real name was Merriwell--Alwyn
Merriwell."
She drew a long breath. Her eyes were as bright as stars as she
hurriedly went on to ask another question; and both Phil and Ethan knew
exactly what this would be before she had uttered a single word.
"Is there a little girl with--Mr. Merriwell? Oh! please tell me
instantly, for I am crazy to hear!"
"Yes, and her name is Mazie!" Phil immediately replied. "We found her
lost in the woods, and took her to our camp. Then later on we ran across
him. He had broken his leg while searching for her, and tried to crawl
miles, thinking to get help from us so as to find her. He came near
dying, too."
She dropped her head in her hands, and they could see that she was
crying very hard. Whether it was through sheer thankfulness because of
what she had heard concerning the presence of the child, or from some
other reason, Phil could not quite understand. But he believed it was
all going to turn out splendidly.
Presently she looked up, and smiled bravely through her tears. Phil
could see that a new happiness had come upon her; and he guessed the
cause.
"I am Mazie's own mother," she said, to the astonishment of Lub, who up
to then had not been able to figure things out correctly; "there was a
terrible misunderstanding between my husband and myself. The court gave
me charge of our child. His love for Mazie was an absorbing passion,
even greater than my own. One day she disappeared, and we had reason to
suspect that he had taken her away, so that she could be with him. Ever
since I have sought far and wide to find them, but until lately without
avail."
She stopped speaking, and seemed to be thinking for a minute; then went
on, for of course none of the boys had ventured to say a single word:
"Of late I have learned through the death of a wicked person that I had
wronged my husband dreadfully. I am only waiting to see him to ask his
forgiveness; and unless he has lost all his love for me we may undo the
wretched past, and start all over again, with Mazie the bond between
us."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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