"Oh yes, I am well guarded, as you know," Mrs. van Warmelo answered, laughing; "there is plenty of time, and you will be back before anything can happen."
Hansie looked doubtful. Was her mother play-acting? Did she mind being left, and was she only eager to have her daughter out of danger's way? Or did she intend putting up the danger-signal, after all?
You see, Hansie was getting so used to plotting and scheming that she could not help turning her newly acquired detective propensities on her nearest and dearest when occasion offered, and she even misdoubted the behaviour of her mother, tried as she had been, and never found wanting, in many a crisis in the past.
"You will wire for me, won't you?" she asked suspiciously.
"Of course, of course—but there will be nothing to wire about, I am quite sure."
With a sigh and many anxious forebodings, Hansie drove to the station on her way to her "pleasure trip."
She was met in the Golden City, now more like a Dead City, by loving friends and a magnificent St. Bernard dog, Nero, who soon made her feel at home, although they could not altogether banish the cares, dimly guessed at by them, with which she was oppressed.
The most reassuring news from home continued to reach her until one morning, on the sixth day after her arrival, a brief postcard from her mother informed her in a few bald words that Harmony had been searched on "Sunday morning the 19th inst."
A few hours later Hansie was in the train, speeding, with remorse tugging at her heart, to her mother's side.
It was something of a disappointment to her, on arriving at Harmony, to find everything exactly as she had left it.