“No; as I said before, papa said he was lovely. Of course, I was at school myself, and didn’t meet him, but I’d trust papa’s judgment any day. And he said he had never seen anybody look so sad. The poor young man seemed to take all the blame on himself.”
“I wonder why!” exclaimed Doris, with pity.
“Well, it seems that he had teased her about a poorly cooked dinner, and it turned out that she was really very sick, with a fever. She took his teasing to heart, and ran out without any coat or hat. He naturally thought she would come right back, but she didn’t. Then he began to phone to all her friends, and to us, but nobody has seen her since. We don’t know whether she’s dead or not!”
“How dreadful!” whispered several of the girls, sympathetically.
“And so, ever since then, papa and Mr. Smith have both spent a great deal of money in trying to trace her; but no detectives have ever found a clue. Mr. Smith finally became discouraged, and went away, giving her up as dead. But we have never given up hope.”
“Surely she’ll turn up,” said Doris, consolingly. “Why, if she had died, somebody, somehow, would have sent word.”
“Except that there was no way to identify her. Well, papa has another theory. He thinks her exposure while she was so sick made her temporarily lose her mind, and probably even now she is an amnesia victim, wandering around trying to find out who she is.”
“Wouldn’t it be great if we’d find her!” cried Alice, who was always looking for adventure.
“We’d never find her this far away,” said Daisy, sadly. “If Olive’s alive, she’s somewhere in the East. Mr. Smith said she couldn’t have had more than ten or fifteen dollars in her purse.”
“Anyway, I’m going to watch for her all the time!” declared Alice. “I’d rather watch for her than for that old stick of a lieutenant!”