"You think you're high and mighty," he sneered. "Let me tell you, Miss, there's more ways than one of getting what you want in this world. Joe Peabody isn't checkmated very often, and it takes more than an impudent girl to do it. I'm going into Lem Durling's and telephone Jim Turner, the poormaster. I kind of surmise he can give me a line on the direction Bob's taken."
Betty walked on, disdaining to answer, her head very high in the air but her heart in her shoes. Jim Turner would be sure to tell of Lockwood Hale, and Mr. Peabody would be astute enough to guess that Bob's destination was Washington.
When she reached Doctor Guerin's house, between the heat and the dust and the long walk and her anxiety, she was in a highly excited state, and the doctor's wife made her lie down on the couch and rest before she would allow her to telephone to the Benders. Mrs. Bender's sister answered the telephone. The recorder and his wife had made a detour on their homeward trip that would extend their absence for another week.
"Betty, you'll be ill if you're going to get all worked up like this," scolded Mrs. Guerin, for Betty was crying as she hung up the receiver. "I never saw you so unstrung, my dear. You won't be fit to go to your uncle when he does send for you. I wonder if the doctor hadn't better see you?"
Norma and Alice Guerin, two pretty girls, the former about Betty's age, the latter a year or two older, looked at her anxiously. Betty in tears was an unusual sight to them.
"I'm all right," gulped that young person, inwardly alarmed at the thought of being too ill to travel when the word came. "I didn't sleep very well last night, thinking of Bob. Is that the secretary he bid on at the Faulkner sale?"
Knowing that the quickest way for Betty to get control of her nerves was to forget her troubles, Mrs. Guerin entered into an enthusiastic description of the beauties of the old desk, showing the secret drawer and the half score of carved pigeonholes and dwelling on the doctor's delight in securing such a treasure at a bargain. Mrs. Guerin succeeded in having Betty more like her old self before Doctor Hal Guerin came in from a round of calls.
He was delighted to see Betty, who was an especial favorite of his, and much interested in her account of Bob's flight.
"Did the lad have money enough?" he growled. "I suppose he'd walk before he'd borrow from me."
"He had enough," Betty assured him. "All the charms you sold for him amounted to quite a lot, and he had saved every cent of that."