"Didn't she leave any address?"
"Nope."
It had been only a cul de sac. Bonbright had come to the end of it, and had only to retrace his steps. It had led him no nearer to his wife. What to do now? He didn't see what he could do, or that anybody could do better than he had done…. He thought of going to the police, but rejected that plan. It was repulsive to him and would be repulsive to Ruth…. He might insert a personal in the paper. Such things were done. But if Ruth were ill she would not see it. If she wanted to hide from him she would not reply.
He went to Mrs. Frazer, but Mrs. Frazer only sobbed and bewailed her fate, and stated her opinion of Bonbright in many confused words. It seemed to be her idea that her daughter was dead or kidnapped, and sometimes she appeared to hold both notions simultaneously…. Bonbright got nothing there.
Discouraged, he went back to his office, but not to his work. He could not work. His mind would hold no thought but of Ruth…. He must find her. He MUST…. Nothing mattered unless he could find her, and until he found her he would be good for nothing else.
He tried to pull himself together. "I've got to work," he said. "I've got to think about something else…." But his will was unequal to the performance…. "Where is she?… Where is she?.." The question, the DEMAND, repeated itself over and over and over.
CHAPTER XXXIII
There was a chance that a specialist, a professional, might find traces of Ruth where Bonbright's untrained eyes missed them altogether. So, convinced that he could do nothing, that he did not in the least know how to go about the search, he retained a firm of discreet, well-recommended searchers for missing persons. With that he had to be content. He still searched, but it was because he had to search; he had to feel that he was trying, doing something, but no one realized the uselessness of it more than himself. He was always looking for her, scanned every face in the crowd, looked up at every window.
In a day or two he was able to force himself to work steadily, unremittingly again. The formula of his patent medicine, with which he was to cure the ills of capital-labor, was taking definite shape, and the professor was enthusiastic. Not that the professor felt any certainty of effecting a permanent cure; he was enthusiastic over it as a huge, splendid experiment. He wanted to see it working and how men would react to it. He had even planned to write a book about it when it should have been in operation long enough to show what its results would be.
Bonbright was sure. He felt that it would bridge the gulf between him and his employees—that gulf which seemed now to be growing wider and deeper instead of disappearing. Mershon's talk was full of labor troubles, of threatened strikes, of consequent delays.