"Who?" North rose hurriedly. "What is it, Ripley? What has happened?"
"Willa. She's gone!" Ripley Halstead dropped despondently into a chair beside the desk. "Here's the note the poor, proud little thing left behind her. Mason, I feel as if, between us, we've given her a beastly, rotten deal."
But the attorney did not heed the final observation. He pressed the button in his desk excitedly and when a wondering clerk appeared he barked:
"That young man who just went out of here! Follow him, stop him!"
"Too late, Sir. He went down in the express elevator as I stepped out of the local."
North seated himself again with a gesture of hopelessness.
"All right; never mind, then. Ripley——" as the door closed once more—"if you'd been five minutes sooner I could have located her. Why under the sun didn't you telephone me?"
"Her absence was only discovered as I was leaving the house and I came straight to you." Halstead stared. "What young man were you speaking of?"
"Her messenger. He came with a note from Willa authorizing him to bring her the photographic copies of those documents, and like a fool I gave them to him! We've lost our chance of tracing her, and heaven only knows what difficulties that headstrong wilful child will get into by herself," groaned North. "I took her away from her home and friends in Mexico on this mistaken matter of her inheritance and I feel responsible for her. I'm fond of the child, too; I like her independent spirit even if it did raise the deuce with us, and if any harm comes to her——"
"I won't let myself think of that!" Ripley Halstead's kind face had grown suddenly haggard. "I have a good deal of respect for her clear-headed ability to take care of herself; nevertheless, I sha'n't feel easy until she is found. I've taken more comfort in her than in my own daughter, Mason. My wife doesn't need Willa's share of the Murdaugh money and I wish young Wiley had never unearthed the truth!"