He moved impatiently, and said, beseechingly:
"But tell me how you got here so soon. How did you learn I was here?
Jack told you when he got my letter?"
"O Vincent, that was what I was coming to! Jack has never been seen or heard from since he escaped from your troops near the Warrick. I did not know you had written. I got a letter from Rosa yesterday morning and went at once to the War Department, where we have a good friend—"
"I can't understand it. All these things are done with system in an army like yours. Men can't disappear like this, leaving no record. I'll stake my head there's foul play, if the boys can't be found. Have you made inquiry in the company on duty where Jack and his companions got into your lines?"
She explained all the efforts that had been made—how Brodie had been baffled, and how letters had been sent to the commanding officer at Fort Monroe.
"We had begun to think that Jack had been recaptured; but surely, if he were, you would have known of it."
"Of course I should."
"Then that confines the search to our own lines. I can not make myself believe that Jack is dead, though mamma has nearly made up her mind to it. The mysterious part of the affair is, that we can not find one of the men who escaped with Jack, though it was announced in the papers weeks ago that a party of them had arrived at Fort Monroe."
"And young 'Perley'?"
"He, too, we can get no trace of."