"But he learned—something?"
An angry red mounted to Burke's forehead.
"Oh, yes; he learned that it belonged to a poor little woman whose husband was as rich as mud, but quite the meanest thing alive, in that he'd tried to buy her off with ten thousand dollars, because he was ashamed of her! Just about what I should think would come from a woman of Mrs. Cobb's mentality!"
"Then she knew about the ten-thousand-dollar check?"
"Apparently. But she didn't know Helen had gone to Boston. The detective found out that. She told him she believed she'd gone back home to her folks. So Helen evidently did not confide in her—or perhaps she intentionally misled her, as she did us."
"I see, I see," sighed John Denby.
For a minute the angry, perplexed, baffled young husband marched back and forth, back and forth, in the great, silent room. Then, abruptly, he stopped short, and faced his father.
"I shall try to find her, of course,—though I think she'll let us hear from her of her own accord, pretty soon, now. But I shan't wait for that. First I shall go to Aunt Eunice and see if she knows the names of any of the people with whom Helen used to live, before she came to her. Then, whatever clues I find I shall endeavor to follow to the end. Meanwhile, so far as Dalton is concerned,—my wife is out of town. That's all. It's no one's business. The matter will be hauled over every dinner-table and rolled under the tongue of every old tabby in town. But they can only surmise and suspect. They can't know anything about it. And we'll be mighty careful that they don't. Brett—bless him!—has been the soul of discretion. We'll see that we follow suit. My wife is out of town! That's all!" And he turned and flung himself from the room.
As soon as possible Burke Denby went to his Aunt Eunice and told her his sorry tale. From her he obtained one or two names, and—what he eagerly grasped at—an address in Boston. Each of these clues he followed assiduously, only to find that it led nowhere. Angrier, but no wiser, he went back home.
The detective, too, reported no progress. And as the days became weeks, and the weeks a month, with no word of Helen, Burke settled into a bitterness of wrath and resentment that would not brook the mention of Helen's name in his presence.