"What do you think? If Esther were my sister and went off like that, leaving no trace, wouldn't you consider it serious? Here is a young girl in a strange country, without friends. If we don't take an interest in finding her, who will? All sorts of things may have happened to her, things one doesn't like to think about." He moistened his lips, continuing with difficulty. "She may have been decoyed and robbed, or—or even something much worse. It's no good shutting one's eyes to the possibility of it."
His face betrayed the serious disturbance of his thoughts. For several seconds his aunt went on with her knitting. Then laying down her work she said in a guarded tone, glancing at Lady Clifford's door:
"Of course there's one thing that would alter all that. Suppose what
Arthur Holliday told Thérèse wasn't true."
"You mean he may have invented that story of the breakdown? Yes, it's quite possible. Only in that case…"
"Don't misunderstand me, Roger," interrupted the old lady quickly. "I could never bring myself to believe anything wrong of that nice girl, I simply couldn't—that is if she were quite herself, responsible, and all that. Only I can't help wondering if you have heard what the doctor hinted to Thérèse about Miss Rowe, about his thinking that sometimes she was—was not quite——"
"Has Thérèse repeated that nonsense to you too?" he demanded angrily.
"Well, I—I admit it startled me very much. I could scarcely believe there was anything in it. I'm sure I never noticed anything the least bit odd about her, and I was amazed to hear that anyone had done so. Yet the doctor is so positive about it, although he hasn't said much. And when a man like that makes a statement, one is almost forced to believe there must be something in it. In any case it occurred to me that if his theory is true she might have left Cannes and gone away, quite forgetting for the moment that she was going to communicate with us. She may even have lost her memory, you know."
"Then if she has," declared Roger firmly, getting to his feet, "there's all the more reason for my making every effort to find her. Although, Dido, I may as well tell you I don't take very much stock in that idea of the doctor's. Oh, I've had a talk with him; he was very scientific, very convincing. He assured me there are a great many people walking about with the same complaint who regard themselves and are generally regarded as perfectly normal. He says they unconsciously invent and believe all sorts of preposterous things. He says no one could predict at what moment they might suddenly go off the handle and behave quite irrationally. No doubt what he says is entirely true, only I can't see it applying to Esther. Why, if I'd been asked to pick a thoroughly normal, well-balanced woman——"
"Yes, yes, I know. I should have said so too."
"He made a good deal out of a trifling incident that I shouldn't have bothered to repeat at all—something about dropping a basin of water. Utter nonsense, I call it. Then he said that she had taken a marked antipathy to him without any reason, and behaved queerly towards him. I'm sure I didn't notice it."