“In a sort of a way, yes,” and Roy told his story, or as much of it as he could, without bringing in the fact of Rex’s having run away from home.
“Oh, I guess I can help you,” exclaimed the woman, when he had finished. “Maybe he is the young fellow who is staying at the Raynors’. I heard about it last Sunday at church.”
“About it? About what?”
Roy’s face grew pale. The woman looked a little uncomfortable.
“Don’t be too anxious,” she replied. “He must be better now if he could send a message. But he’s had the intermittent fever. He was found on the piazza of the house one rainy evening about ten days ago by Florence Raynor. A trampish looking young fellow had carried him in out of the wet, and they say he’s been devoted to him ever since.”
“Where do the Raynors live?” asked Roy, already impatient to be off.
“Come here to the window and I can show you the house. It is clear at the end of this street beyond all the others. You can just see the chimneys above the trees.”
Roy was soon hurrying away in the direction pointed out.
Although he feared that Rex might have been ill, the certainty of it made his heart very sore for his brother.
“Sick among strangers!” was his thought. “I wish mother had come with me.”