Kate fairly hated herself for the passing thrill of relief over the timely illness that had intervened to expedite her mission. She glanced over the letters. There was one in her father's hand, postmarked Acredale. It contained no clew to his purposes, but she read tremblingly:
"My daughter: You are doing a foolish thing. The search you propose can lead to nothing. All that can be done has been done by his friends. They have found no trace of him. Women can not hope to succeed where so keen a man as Brodie has failed. I have every confidence that in good time the matter will be cleared up, but you must remember that the Government and its agents have all they can do to manage and keep track of the millions of soldiers in the field, and they can not be expected to take much interest in the fate of the wounded or dead. Always affectionately.
"Your Father."
All doubt of her father's sinister intervention in Jack's disappearance now took the form of certainty in the girl's mind. When Olympia came back, a few moments later, Kate said, tenderly:
"I have news from home. I must go back at once. It is less of a grief to me, since I should be banished from you if I were here. I shall not be gone long. I shall certainly be back as soon as you can receive me. In the mean while, don't despair. I have been put on a new trail that I can not explain to you now. But I can say this much, when you see me again you shall know whether Jack is alive or dead."
Olympia, who had been so strong, cheery, and masterful when it had been a question of reassuring her mother, was now the stricken spirit. She looked at Kate through swimming eyes, and her voice was lost in sobs as she tried to speak. The girls held each other in a tearful silence, neither able to say what was in the minds of both. Even the uncertainty had a sort of solace compared with the dreadful possibility of the worst.
"Remember, dear, you have your mother. What is our poor grief to hers; what is our loss to hers? It ought to comfort you to know that whatever human thought, courage, love can do to recover Jack, I shall do, just as you would in my place. I am very strong and resolute now, and I am filled with hope—so filled that I can not talk to you. I dare not let you see how much I hope, lest if it be not fulfilled you will hate me for inspiring you with it."
"I will hope. I do believe you will do better than I should. The loving are the daring—you will find Jack. I know it."
"Ah, God bless you, Olympia! That removes a curse from me—I—I mean that fills me with a courage that is not my own, I have learned yours or stolen it. But you will forgive me, for I mean to use it all in your behalf."
Olympia smiled sadly, and the two parted. By the night express Kate left the city, and, the next afternoon, reached Acredale. As she anticipated, her father was not at home. He had only been an hour or two in the house since his return. The servants had no idea where he was. His letters were forwarded to him under cover of his lawyers in Warchester. If, as she fearfully surmised, her father were engaged in some cruel scheme to the hurt of Jack, her best way with him would be perfect frankness. She had never yet failed in swerving him from his most headstrong impulses when she could talk with him. She must have him now to herself. Her best plan, therefore, would be to write. Yet she hardly knew how to frame the note, reflecting bitterly, as she sat twirling her pen, on the monstrous state of things that made writing to her own father almost a duplicity. At length she wrote: