Page:Emily Climbs.pdf/61

 “Oh, Teddy, take me away—take me quick—oh, don’t let him touch me, Teddy—don’t let him touch me!”

Teddy swung her behind him and faced Mad Mr. Morrison on the stone step.

“How dare you frighten her so?” he demanded angrily.

Mad Mr. Morrison smiled deprecatingly in the moonlight. All at once he was not wild or violent—only a heart-broken old man who sought his own.

“I want Annie,” he mumbled. “Where is Annie? I thought I had found her in there. I only wanted to find my beautiful Annie.”

“Annie isn’t here,” said Teddy, tightening his hold on Emily’s cold little hand.

“Can you tell me where Annie is?’ entreated Mad Mr. Morrison, wistfully. “Can you tell me where my dark-haired Annie is?”

Teddy was furious with Mad Mr. Morrison for frightening Emily, but the old man’s piteous entreaty touched him—and the artist in him responded to the values of the picture presented against the background of the white, moonlit church. He thought he would like to paint Mad Mr. Morrison as he stood there, tall and gaunt, in his gray “duster” coat, with his long white hair and beard, and the ageless quest in his hollow, sunken eyes,

“No—no—I don’t know where she is,” he said gently, “but I think you will find her sometime.”

Mad Mr. Morrison sighed.

“Oh, yes. Sometime I will overtake her. Come, my dog, we will seek her.”

Followed by his old black dog he went down the steps, across the green and down the long, wet, tree-shadowed road. So going, he passed out of Emily’s life. She never saw Mad Mr. Morrison again. But she looked after him understandingly, and forgave him. To himself he was not the repulsive old man he seemed to her: he was a gallant young lover seeking his lost and lovely bride. The pitiful beauty of his quest intrigued her, even in the shaking reaction from her hour of agony.