"She's wandered away!" sobbed Mrs. Balcome. "Half-crazed with it all!
Heart-broken! Heart-broken!"
With a muffled growl, Balcome once more fell upon Ikey, who had been watching and listening from a discreet distance. "Where is Miss Milo, I say!" he demanded as he swooped.
But Ikey's determination did not fail him, though his teeth chattered.
"I—I—d-d-don't know!" he protested for the tenth time.
"Oh, terrible! Terrible!"—this in a fresh burst from Mrs. Balcome.
"Oh, what did I say what I did for!"
"Don't cry! Don't cry!" comforted Wallace. "We'll hunt for her.
Police, and detectives——"
A crash of piano notes interrupted from the drawing-room. Then through open door and windows floated the first bars of "Comin' Thro' the Rye"—with an accompaniment in rag-time. As one the group in the Close turned toward the house.
"Hattie?" exclaimed Mrs. Balcome.
"Hattie!" faltered Wallace.
"Hattie!"—it was a crisp bass summons from Hattie's father.
Hattie put her head out at the door. "Good-morning, mother!" she called cheerily. "Good-morning, dad! Good-morning,—Wallace."