After the long day of fruitless search and enquiry for the vanished Nancy, supper being over and Tom having gone outside, Dan joined his mother in the blue parlour.
Mrs. Frost was weary with waiting and anxiety, but as Dan threw himself on a couch near her chair, she watched him patiently.
"There is no clue, Dan?" she ventured at last.
"No clue, mother, not the slightest. Nancy seems to have vanished as completely as if she had dissolved into air. As you know, the house has been thoroughly searched; the servants carefully questioned; and enquiries have been made at every conceivable place in Monday Port. I have been to the House on the Dunes, and to the farmhouses on every road round about. No one has seen or heard of her. She has taken French leave, but for what reason I can't imagine."
"Nancy has not been happy for some time, Dan," said Mrs. Frost.
"No, I have fancied that she was not. But why? Do you suppose she has left us deliberately? or—". He paused uncertain whether or not to give voice to his suspicions.
"Or what?" asked his mother.
"Or she has been forced away against her will."
"Against her will!" the old lady exclaimed. "Who could have forced her? and for what reason? Do you think she may have been kidnapped?"
"Either kidnapped or decoyed away."