“How could there be here, sir?” answered Mrs. Estabrook, with unruffled demeanor.
This answer helped to calm Mr. Reynolds, who ordered dinner delayed half an hour.
When, however, an hour—two hours—passed, and the little boy still remained absent, the father's anxiety became insupportable. He merely tasted a few spoonfuls of soup, and found it impossible to eat more. The housekeeper, on the contrary, seemed quite unconcerned, and showed her usual appetite.
“I am seriously anxious, Mrs. Estabrook,” said the broker. “I will take my hat and go out to see if I can gain any information. Should Herbert return while I am away, give him his supper, and, if he is tired, let him go to bed, just finding out why he was out so late.”
“Very well, sir.”
When Mr. Reynolds had left the house a singular expression of gratified malice swept over the housekeeper's face. “It is just retribution,” she murmured. “He condemned and discharged my stepson for the sin of another. Now it is his own heart that bleeds.”
Only a few steps from his own door the broker met a boy about two years older than Herbert, with whom the latter sometimes played.
“Harvey,” he said, “have you seen Herbert this afternoon?”
“Yes, sir; I saw him about three o'clock.”
“Where?” asked the broker, anxiously.