He was passing through a city where he had been in the habit of receiving mail, and he stopped to see if anything was in the box for him, and to pay his box rent and give it up. There he found the letter.
His face grew tender and stern as he read. Dear little brave Lib. Well he knew who the bad man with red hair must be, but how did Tyke ever find out Lib? Some deviltry somewhere. But one thing was certain, he must abandon his plans and go home to protect her. He would take Tyke out in the open somewhere and give him a lesson if necessary.
He glanced at the date on the letter and frowned. Already he had been in ignorance too long. There was time enough for any number of things to have happened to Lib, and well he knew that Tyke was a bad man. To the warning concerning his own welfare he paid no heed whatever, passing over Lib’s solicitude for him with a tender smile.
More alarmed than he cared to own even to himself, he studied up time-tables and took the first train that would make connections for Meadow Brook. He must tell Mason to look after Lib better. They were too careless with that child. As soon as his quest was over he must try and do something about Lib. She wasn’t being brought up in the right way. She wasn’t being taught right and wrong. She was too much on her own, just as he had been. That must all be changed.
So he boarded the train for home, and on the way he closed his eyes and tried to exercise his new power of prayer. What he was praying for was that he might find Joyce Radway, and as the train rumbled along he began to think to himself that perhaps, after all, he had been a fool. He had got interested in his quest as a quest and had not remembered that it might by this time be unnecessary. For aught he knew she might have reached home.
Still, there was Dan Peterson. Dan always knew about where to find him within a few days, and there had been no word from Dan all along the line.
He closed his eyes and tried to pray. He was just learning to pray, and since he had read the promises to those who prayed and believed, he had spent much time upon this one petition: “Oh God, help me to find Joyce and keep her safely.”
It was dark when Darcy reached Meadow Brook. He had come by a way of his own and had not seen any one he knew. He took the short cut across by the railroad and in at the back gate, and so entered the house from the kitchen door.
His sister was sitting by the diningroom table with her head upon her arms, crying in the dark. Lib was standing with her face flattened against the window-pane, the slow tears coursing down her cheeks. Darcy reached up and turned the light on, blinking at them wonderingly. His first startled thought was that Mase must be dead. He put out a hand gently and laid it on Ellen’s bowed head. Good, simple Ellen!