“Yes, and I’m rather anxious about her. That’s why I came out when I heard your voices. She’s had a pretty severe disappointment, I’m afraid. She seems to have lost her voice.”
“Lost her voice!” ejaculated Mrs. Garcia in a low gasp of horror. “Good heavens!”
The boys looked from one to the other with the round eyes of growing fear and dread. The calamity, as announced by Pierpont, did not seem adequate for the consternation it caused, but an oppressive sense of apprehension was in the air.
“What made her want to sing?” said the widow; “she was too sick to sing.”
“That’s what I told her, but she insisted. She was determined to. She said she was going to Europe to study.”
“Going to Europe!” It was Barron’s deep voice that put the question this time, Mrs. Garcia being too astonished by this last piece of intelligence to have breath for speech. “When was she going to Europe?”
“In a day or two—as soon as she could pack her trunks, she said. I don’t really think she was quite accountable for what she said. She was burning with a fever and she seemed in a tremendously wrought-up state. I think her fright of the night before had quite upset her. I tried to cheer her up, but she ran away as if she was frantic. Have any of you seen her?”
“No,” said Mrs. Garcia, her voice curiously flat. “She’s gone.”
“Gone?” echoed Pierpont. “Gone where?”
“We don’t any of us know. But she’s not in the house anywhere. And now it’s getting dark and—”