CHAPTER XIX
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
"That's twice you've made a wrong play, Betty," observed Mr. Littell. "What lies heavy on your mind this evening?"
Betty blushed, and attempted to put her mind more on the game. She was playing checkers with Mr. Littell, whose injured foot still kept him a prisoner most of the time, and she had played badly all the evening, she knew. Truth to tell, she was thinking about her uncle and wondering over and over why she did not hear from him.
After the rubber was played and the other girls who had been around the piano, singing, had gone out to get something to eat, for the maids had the evening off, Betty spoke to her host.
"I suppose you think I'm foolish," she ventured; "but I am really worried about Uncle Dick now. He has never answered the telegram and the two letters I've written. His Philadelphia lawyer writes that he is waiting to hear from him. He seems to have dropped out of the world. Do you think he may be sick in some hospital and not able to communicate with us?"
"That's a possibility," admitted Mr. Littell soberly. "But I tell you honestly, Betty, and not simply to relieve your mind, that I consider it a very remote one. Business men, especially men who travel a great deal, as you tell me your uncle does, seldom are without somewhere on their person, their names and addresses, and directions about what is to be done in case of sickness or accident. I never travel without such a card. Ten to one, if your uncle were ill or injured, his lawyer would have been notified immediately."
A weight of anxiety slipped from Betty's heart, for she immediately recognized the sound common sense in this argument. Still, something else was troubling her.
"Don't you think," she began again bravely, "that I had better go to Pineville? The quarantine is lifted, I hear, and the Bensingers will take me in till I can hear from Uncle Dick. You and Mrs. Littell and the girls have been so lovely to me, but—but—" her voice trailed off.