Miss Purcell shook her head.
"It will all depend upon whether she succeeds in hitting upon a clew as to where Walter is. If she finds that she has no chance of so doing she will return; if, on the other hand, she thinks that there is a probability that with patience she will succeed, she will continue to watch and wait."
"Miss Netta is not ill, I hope, miss?" Roberts said, when he came in to clear the breakfast things away.
"No she has gone away on a short visit," Hilda replied. Had she been watching the old soldier's face, she might have caught a slight contortion that would have enlightened her as to the fact that he knew more than she did about the matter; but she had avoided looking at him, lest he should read in her face that she was in ignorance as to Netta's whereabouts. She would have liked to have asked when she went; whether she took a box with her, and whether she had gone early that morning or late the evening before; but she felt that any questions of the sort would show that she was totally in the dark as to her friend's movements. In fact Netta had walked out early that morning, having sent off a box by the carrier on the previous Saturday when Hilda was out; Roberts having himself carried it to the receiving house.
It was four or five days before Dr. Leeds called again.
"Is Miss Purcell out?" he asked carelessly, when some little time had elapsed without her making her appearance.
"Is that asked innocently, Dr. Leeds?" Hilda said quickly.
The doctor looked at her in genuine surprise.
"Innocently, Miss Covington? I don't think that I quite understand you."
"I see, doctor, that I have been in error. I suspected you of being an accomplice of Netta's in a little scheme in which she is engaged on her own account." And she then told him about her disappearance, of the letter that she had received, and of the conversation with her aunt. Dr. Leeds was seriously disturbed.