"All we are sure of," Mr. Pierce replied quietly, "is that he is not in the sanatorium."
She looked at us all closely, but she got nothing from my face.
"Oh, very well," she said, shrugging her shoulders, "I'll wait until he shows up. It doesn't cost anything."
Then, with one of her easy changes, she laughed and picked up her muff to go.
"Minnie and I," she said, "will tend bar here, and in our leisure moments we will pour sulphur water on a bunch of Dicky's letters that I have, to cool 'em." She walked to the door and turned around, smiling.
"Carry fire insurance on 'em all the time," she finished and went out, leaving us staring at one another!
CHAPTER XVIII
MISS COBB'S BURGLAR
I went to bed early that night. What with worrying and being alternately chilled by tramping through the snow and roasted as if I was sitting on a volcano with an eruption due, I was about all in. We'd been obliged to tell Mrs. Sam about the Summers woman, and I had to put hot flannels on her from nine to ten. She was quieter when I left her, but, as I told Mr. Sam, it was the stillness of despair, not resignation.