"To-day? Why, certainly not!" was the stupefied answer. "I was just about to start for your house."
Mr. Fern sank upon a sofa just inside the door.
"Something—has—happened!" he groaned. "Ah, my boy, something has happened to my child!"
Roseleaf looked at Mr. Gouger, who in turn looked at Mr. Fern.
"She—went away—this morning—on an errand," enunciated the father, slowly, "saying—she would return—at noon. And—that is the last we—have seen—of her. Oh, it seems as if I should go mad!"
It seemed as if Shirley Roseleaf would go mad, too. He looked like one bereft of sense, as he stood there without uttering a word.
"Perhaps she has returned since you left home," suggested Mr. Gouger, on the spur of the instant. "Don't lose heart yet. Let me send to a telephone office and have them inquire. You have a 'phone in your house, have you not, Mr. Fern?"
The father bowed in reply. He was too crushed to say anything unnecessary. Touching a button, Mr. Gouger soon had a messenger dispatched for the information desired, and in the meantime he tried, by suggesting possibilities, to soothe the two men.
"You shouldn't get so excited," he protested. "There are a hundred slight accidents that might be responsible for Miss Daisy's delay. Perhaps she has met with an insignificant accident, and the word she has sent to her father has gone astray—as happens very often in these days. That would account for everything. Or she may have taken the wrong train—an express—that did not stop this side of Bridgeport, and hesitated to telegraph for fear of alarming you. 'Don't cry till you're hurt' is an old proverb. Why, neither of you act much better than as if her dead body had been brought home!"
They heard him, but neither replied. They waited—it seemed an hour—for an answer to the telephonic message, and it came, simply this: "Nothing has been heard as yet of Miss Fern."