“It is not decided,” answered Wentworth. From his manner the housekeeper understood that he did not care to be interrogated further. She would like to have asked where Victor had gone, for she felt some affection for the boy whom she had known since he wore knickerbockers, but she reflected that when letters were received the postmark would reveal what she desired to know. Accordingly she waited eagerly, but so far as she could learn no letters came from the absent boy. She grew anxious, but Bradley Wentworth seemed calm and imperturbable.
“Master Victor must be all right,” she concluded, “or his father would look anxious.”
One morning Mrs. Bancroft found in the mail a letter dated Gulchville, Colorado, but the address was evidently written by an uneducated person not much in the habit of holding the pen. It couldn’t be from Victor, whose handwriting was very good, but Mrs. Bancroft reflected in alarm that he might be sick and unable to write for himself, and had employed an illiterate amanuensis.
She looked closely at Mr. Wentworth when he read the letter at the breakfast table. He seemed surprised, but that was the only emotion which the housekeeper could detect.
He laid the letter down without a word, having read it apparently with some difficulty.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Wentworth,” said Mrs. Bancroft, “but does the letter give any news of Master Victor?”
“No; what should make you think it did, Mrs. Bancroft?”
“I noticed that it was postmarked in Colorado.”
“True, but I don’t expect Victor to go so far, I have acquaintances in Colorado.”
That was the only information vouchsafed to Mrs. Bancroft.