Ray tried to soothe her. Reassuringly, she said:
"Don't worry, dear. Everything will be all right. A general alarm has been sent out. The police all over the country are searching high and low. It's only a question of a few hours and you'll have good news."
But the hours passed and no news came to cheer the distracted, broken-hearted mother. Dorothy had disappeared completely, leaving no trace, no clue behind.
There was neither rest nor peace for the Traynor household that day. Helen, almost out of her mind from grief and worry, refused to eat or sleep until news of the missing child was received. In her agony she went down on her knees and prayed as she had never prayed before that her child be restored to her.
Her little daughter was, she felt, the one link that still bound her to life. To her husband she felt she could not turn for sympathy. The romance of their early married life had been shattered forever by the extraordinary change that had come over him. He had long since ceased to be to her any more than a name. In her heart, she had come to despise and detest him as much as before she had worshiped the very ground he trod. It was an astonishing revulsion of feeling which she was powerless to explain; she only knew that the old love, the old passion he had awakened was now quite dead. He inspired in her no more affection or feeling than the merest stranger. Ever since his return from South Africa they had lived apart. Ever since that first night of his return when their tête-à-tête in the library was interrupted by the bogus telegram, he had quite ceased his amorous advances. He seemed anxious to avoid her. Only on rare occasions, and then it was by accident, did they find themselves in each other's company.
In fact, he was practically never home, living almost exclusively at the club, where he went the pace with associates of his choosing, mostly gamblers and men about town. He had begun to drink hard and when not in pool rooms or at the races, betting recklessly on the horses, squandering such huge sums, and overdrawing his check account so often that the bank was compelled to ask him to desist, he sat in the barrooms with his cronies till all hours of the morning when he would be brought home in a condition of shocking intoxication. Happily Helen was spared the spectacle of the degradation of a man she once had loved with all the force of her virgin soul. Roberts, the butler, aided by the other servants, smuggled their intoxicated master up to his room, where he remained until sober, when he went back to his club only to repeat the same performance.
To such a man she could not turn for aid or consolation in the hour of this new misfortune. Indeed, ever since his return, he had been strangely indifferent to the welfare of the child, never asking after her or expressing a desire to see her. At times it seemed as if he had forgotten that he had a child. By some strange metamorphosis he had developed into an unnatural father as well as a brutal, indifferent husband.
But to Helen, alone save for the devoted companionship of her sister, this was anxiety and suffering enough. Only twenty-four hours had passed since the child disappeared, but to the unhappy mother it seemed as many years. Constantly at the telephone, expecting each moment to hear that the police had been successful in finding the child, she was gradually wearing herself away to a shadow. Breakfast she left untouched. Lunch she refused to eat. In vain Ray remonstrated with her. If she went on like that she would fall ill. But still Helen refused. Tears choked her, and morning wore into afternoon and still no news.
After lunch Ray went out to see if Mr. Steell could help them, promising to return as soon as possible. Helen sat and waited alone. The clock was just striking two o'clock when the front doorbell rang and a letter was brought to her. She did not recognize the writing, but eagerly she tore it open. Instinctively, she felt it concerned her missing darling. The letter read as follows:
No. — Lasalle Street, Bronx. Friday.