“Who’s the man you’re going to get?”
“Pennington Wise, the best in the country.”
“I’ve heard of him. Well, it will be interesting to see how he goes about it.”
CHAPTER VIII
Ransom
The Herbert Varians went back to their summer home, and Minna, left alone with her companion and her secretary, began what she called her campaign to find Betty.
Some people thought Mrs Varian a little affected mentally by her awful griefs, but those who knew her best read in her determination and persistence a steady aim and felt a slight hope of her success.
“Anything in the world I can do, dear,” Claire Blackwood said to her, “command me. I’ll go to the city for you or do errands or anything I can.”
“No,” said Minna, “there’s nothing you can do. Nothing anybody can do. I’m only afraid that if I get no encouragement in my efforts, I will lose my mind,—and that’s what I’m trying to guard against. I follow my nurse’s directions as to exercise, diet and all that, but I feel as if I could only keep my brain from flying to pieces by hanging onto my hope of eventually finding my child.”
“And you will,” Claire said, earnestly, though she voiced a belief that she was far from feeling, “Oh, Mrs Varian, you will!”
“You see,” Minna went on, “I’ve a new theory now. I think that maybe Betty killed her father accidentally——”