“He may have gone to a restaurant to get something to eat,” Kitty suggested hopefully.
Five minutes later the car approached the main part of the city, and Marshmallow selected the most important business street. He drove slowly, permitting the others to scan the faces of the pedestrians.
“I’m afraid it’s a hopeless task,” Doris sighed, “but as long as there is any chance of our finding him, we must keep searching.”
There was a further delay, while gasoline was put into the car. As they drove on down the street, Dave said:
“Let’s stop in front of this restaurant. I’ll go inside and look around. It’s possible he stopped here.”
Marshmallow halted the car at the curb and Dave vanished inside the eating place. Through the plate-glass window the others could see him talking to the cashier.
“If we don’t find Mr. Jay here, there’s one thing we can do,” Doris said thoughtfully, “and that is to camp by the dock. We can catch him when he comes to take the next boat.”
“Yes, but he may be afraid someone will follow him and take a train or a bus out of the city,” Marshmallow returned gloomily.
“We might separate,” suggested Kitty, “and look at these different places.”
Dave came out just then to report that no one answering Mr. Jay’s description had been seen there. He climbed into the car and they drove on again, stopping at the next restaurant a block farther down the street.
“I’m afraid we’re just wasting time,” Doris commented, while they were waiting for Dave. “I think it’s useless to—” She broke off suddenly.
Her attention had been attracted to a well-dressed, smooth-shaven man who had just at that moment stepped out of a barber shop which adjoined the restaurant. Doris was certain she had never seen him before, yet there was something strangely familiar about his appearance. It was not until he started down the street that she noted the peculiar walk and stoop to the shoulders.
“Look!” she cried tensely. “Isn’t that Mr. Jay?”
“It is!” Kitty exclaimed. “He looks like a different person!”
Doris did not hesitate. Springing from the car, she ran after the man, indifferent to the stares of passersby.
“Wait!” she called.
The man turned his head, and as Doris looked squarely into his face she was certain that she was not mistaken. It was indeed Mr. Jay!
For an instant she thought that the old man intended to run away, for an expression of alarm and panic passed over his face. As he hesitated uncertainly, she rushed up to him.
“Oh, you mustn’t run away!” she cried, catching him impulsively by the arm. “Come back to the car. I must talk with you, and we can’t here, for people are staring.”
“I—I’m in a hurry,” the old miser protested. “I’m going away.”
“I can’t let you go. Not until I have explained everything. Then, if you insist upon leaving, I won’t try to keep you.”
By this time Doris’s friends had gathered about the two, and Dave, returning from the restaurant, joined the group on the street. Mr. Jay looked from one to the other, as shamefaced as a culprit caught in a dishonorable act. As a matter of fact, he had been attempting to get away from Cloudy Cove without having his identity discovered. He had hoped that by changing his appearance, he could avoid detection.
Doris, seeing that the old man was not to be persuaded, determined upon a bold stroke.
“It’s useless to pretend,” she said gently. “I know that you are my Uncle John Trent!”
A frightened look came into the eyes of the miser. His wrinkled hands shook.
“You can’t know,” he murmured brokenly. “You can’t know.”
“But I do! I have positive proof.” Doris brought out the photograph and pointed to the miser’s signature on the back. “Here is my uncle’s handwriting, and if you compare it with the writing on this old envelope, you will see that they are in the same hand!”
Mr. Jay stared hard at the photograph, and all at once his pose fell away. His shoulders drooped, his head sank low against his chest; he became, in effect, a tired, beaten old man, long buffeted about by an unkind world.
For just a moment Doris thought that perhaps she had made a dreadful mistake—that probably she was doing an injustice to this man.
Almost at once, however, she reassured herself.
“Aren’t you my uncle?” she pleaded.
“Yes, it’s no use to pretend,” he murmured in a voice scarcely audible, “I am John Trent!”
CHAPTER XXV
A Satisfactory Solution
“Oh, I knew it! I knew it!” Doris cried. “After you ran away this afternoon I was just sure that you were my own uncle. Come with us to the car.”
The old man shook his head and hung back. Doris saw a tear trickle down his cheek.
“No, I must go away. You don’t understand—there are things I can’t explain.”
“You need not explain anything,” Doris told him gently. “I understand everything. You must come with me back to Chilton and perhaps later to Locked Gates.”
“Locked Gates,” her uncle echoed hollowly.
Doris bit her lip at her own thoughtlessness, just when she was trying to be particularly tactful. How inconsiderate of her, she thought, to remind him of the very thing which had driven him away. Undoubtedly, John Trent knew as well as she, that the Misses Gates had locked the front entrance of their property following the unfortunate affair. In reality, the Locked Gates were a symbol—a reminder that the Gates twins had locked their hearts against their former lover.
“I can’t go back—there,” the old man murmured. “It is best that I fade completely out of sight. No one cares for me any more—”
“Why, Uncle John, we all love you and want you back,” Doris assured him.
“But Azalea and Iris—”
“I feel sure they have forgiven you everything, although I can’t believe it was your fault that things went wrong. You should never have gone away, Uncle John. You should have faced the situation.”
The old man avoided Doris’s eyes.
“I realize it now, but it’s too late to rectify my mistake.”
“But it isn’t,” Doris assured him firmly. “Please come with us.”
John Trent made no response, yet when his niece took him gently by the arm, he went with her to the car. On the way back to the camp Doris and her friends wisely refrained from discussing the topic which was so painful to Doris’s newly found relative. However, once he was comfortably established in Mrs. Mallow’s sitting room he reverted of his own accord to the previous conversation.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that you are right, Doris,” he said, speaking her name rather shyly. “I have been foolish all these years to hide away from the world.”
“Then you will go back with us to Chilton?” his niece questioned eagerly.
Mr. Trent hesitated.
“I’ll do anything you ask, Doris, but I’d rather wait about going back. I don’t feel as though I could face things just yet.”
“I understand,” Doris said quietly, “and I won’t urge you to, although we do so want you with us at Chilton. Whenever you are ready to come, you know we