She met her father's intent gaze and his look startled her. He beckoned her, and she stepped back out of the line and joined him.
"Giles, Constance; where is he?" demanded Stephen Hopkins.
"Father, I don't know! Isn't he here?" she cried.
"He is not here, nor is John Billington," said her father. "No one has seen either of them since last night. Is it likely that they would absent themselves willingly from this wedding; Giles, who is so fond of John Alden; John Billington, who is so fond of anything whatever that breaks the monotony of the days?"
Constance shook her head. "No, Father," she whispered.
"No. And you have no clue to this disappearance, Constance?" her father insisted.
"Father, Father, no; no, indeed!" protested Constance. "I did not so much as miss the boys from among us. But what could have befallen them? It can't be that they have come to harm?"
"Constance," said her father with a visible effort, "Giles was deeply angry with me yesterday——"
"Father, dear Father, you are quite wrong!" Constance interrupted him. "There was no mistaking how delighted Giles was with your making the treaty. Indeed I saw in him all the old-time love and pride in you that we used to make a jest—but how we liked it!—in the dear days across the water, when we were children."
Stephen Hopkins let her have her say. Then he shook his head.