All at once, I saw my destination directly ahead of me. With rasping breath and pounding heart, I accelerated my pace and reached—with what delirious relief I can scarcely express!—the threshold of my dwelling. Clutching the doorknob with one trembling hand, I stopped—whirled around—and let out a gasp of astonishment and incomprehension.

Apart from a scrawny and bedraggled dog that was trotting along the paving stones and pausing intermittently to sniff at the curb, the street behind me was utterly deserted. I strained my eyes to peer into the darkness that lay beyond the compass of the flickering street lamp. But my phantom pursuer was nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER 16

Quickly entering my abode, I secured the latch, then made my way towards the warm, intensely welcoming glow that emanated from the kitchen doorway. At the threshold, I paused for an instant to savor the bewitching atmosphere of snug domesticity that permeated the humble scene.

At the small, circular table sat Muddy and Sissy. Before them lay the vestiges of their simple evening meal, which—to judge from the morsels that littered their plates—had consisted of cheese, salt beef, and brown bread. As I gazed in silent adoration at the two angelic creatures, Muddy became suddenly aware of my presence and, clasping her hands to her bosom, exclaimed: “Oh, Eddie! Thank goodness! I have been so dreadfully worried!”

Stepping across the room, I sank into the chair directly across from the saintly woman and gazed lovingly at her plain yet beguiling countenance.

“Be assured, darling Muddy, that—while somewhat fatigued from the unparalleled events of this most trying, most distressing day—your Eddie is, in all other respects, entirely well.”

I next turned my gaze upon Sissy and communicated Crockett’s message. “He is most eager to hear you sing, and has vowed to be here, come”—here, I felt it apt, for Sissy’s benefit, to modify the frontiers-man’s coarse vernacular—“come Hades or high water.”

“Hurray!” exclaimed my angel. “I will go practice right now!” And with this declaration, she sprang to her feet and disappeared from the kitchen. Seconds later, the heart-piercing strains of that noble ballad “The Unconstant Lover”—rendered in Sissy’s ethereal voice—could be heard issuing from the parlor.

For a moment, Muddy and I listened in rapt silence. Then, turning to me with a look of intense maternal solicitude, the dear woman said: “Eddie, is everything all right? I have started to feel that you are keeping something from your Muddy.”

“Clearly,” I replied, “nothing can exceed, in terms of sheer discernment, the perspicacious power of a sympathetic heart. Your loving intuition has not misled you, dearest Muddy. Nevetheless, I must persist in my present course of unwonted, if well-intentioned, secrecy. To apprise you of the truth would not, by any means, diminish your anxiety on my acount.”