The Dragon's Secret

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

THE NIGHT OF THE STORM

It had been a magnificent afternoon, so wonderful that Leslie hated to break the spell. Reluctantly she unrolled herself from the Indian blanket, from which she emerged like a butterfly from a cocoon, draped it over her arm, picked up the book she had not once opened, and turned for a last, lingering look at the ocean. A lavender haze lay lightly along the horizon. Nearer inshore the blue of sea and sky was intense. A line of breakers raced shoreward, their white manes streaming back in the wind. Best of all, Leslie loved the flawless green of their curve at the instant before they crashed on the beach.

“Oh, but the ocean’s wonderful in October!” she murmured aloud. “I never had any idea how wonderful. I never saw it in this month before. Come, Rags!”

A black-and-white English sheep-dog, his name corresponding closely to his appearance, came racing up the beach at her call.

“Did you find it hard to tear yourself away from the hermit-crabs, Ragsie?” she laughed. “You must have gobbled down more than a hundred. It’s high time you left off!”

She started to race along the deserted beach, the dog leaping ahead of her and yapping ecstatically. Twice she stopped to pick up some driftwood.

“We’ll need it to get supper, Rags,” she informed the dog. “Our stock is getting low.”

He cocked one ear at her intelligently.

They came presently to a couple of summer bungalows set side by side about two hundred feet from the ocean edge. They were long and low, each with a wide veranda stretching across the front. There were no other houses near, the next bungalow beyond being about half a mile away.

With a sigh of relief, Leslie deposited the driftwood in one corner of the veranda of the nearest bungalow. Then she dropped into one of the willow rockers to rest, the dog panting at her feet. Presently the screen door opened and a lady stepped out.

“Oh! are you here, Leslie? I thought I heard a sound, and then it was so quiet that I came out to see what it meant. Every little noise seems to startle me this afternoon.”

“I’m so sorry, Aunt Marcia! I should have called to you,” said Leslie, starting up contritely to help her aunt to a seat. “I hope you had a good nap and feel rested, but sometimes I think it would do you more good if you’d come out with me and sit by the ocean than try to lie down in your room. It was simply glorious to-day.”

Miss Marcia Crane shook her head. “I know what is best for me, Leslie dear. You don’t always understand. But I believe this place is doing me a great deal of good. I confess, I thought Dr. Crawford insane when he suggested it, and I came here with the greatest reluctance. For a nervous invalid like myself to go and hide away in such a forsaken spot as this is in October, just you and I, seemed to me the wildest piece of folly. But I must say it appears to be working out all right, and I am certainly feeling better already.”

“But why shouldn’t it have been all right?” argued Leslie....