“Are you sure?” Dorothea asked, surprised, stooping down beside her.
Miss Imogene picked up a piece of charred cloth. There could be no doubt about that.
“It’s very curious,” murmured Dorothea, and went over to the window, which she found fastened on the inside. “And he hasn’t gone out here, either.”
“He’s been taken by Val Tracy,” Miss Imogene declared positively, all hope gone.
This Dorothea could not well deny. It certainly looked as if no other explanation of the young man’s disappearance would fit the facts. The girl looked about the room hopelessly, and her eye fell upon the desk in the corner. Miss Imogene followed her glance and then with a little cry ran to it.
“I left this open,” she said hurriedly, letting down the lid as she spoke.
It was long since the compartments had been filled with creamy sheets, gone, too, were all the luxurious fittings. A dish of sand, a goose quill pen or two, poke-berry ink, some home-made wafers and wallpaper envelopes. For paper there was only a book of household receipts which had been written upon one side only. That was the extent of the stationery. But on one of these sheets was a note, propped up against the inkstand. Miss Imogene tore it open, half frantically.
“Dear and gracious lady,” it began. “It is neither lack of gratitude nor fear for my own skin that takes me off without a word of thanks and farewell. Your kindness and that of the young lady at whose window I knocked so unceremoniously, I shall never forget. But my presence here cannot fail to be an embarrassment to you and a danger as well. In happier days, perhaps, I shall see you both again, and if I should ever be able to repay you for what you have done for a spent and rather helpless wanderer, believe me, I shall not fail. What fortune is ahead of me I cannot guess. I, at least, have hope. Always faithffully yours, Laurence Stanchfield.”
“Now what do you make of that?” Miss Imogene questioned. “Has he escaped or hasn’t he?”
“I should think he was going to try it,” Dorothea replied.