“Ah, Monsieur Brune!” she exclaimed, grasping his hand. “Did you know that a dirty Prussian had sent a bomb right down through the skylight of the good Bents’ and now all their things are wrecked?”
“The Bents’!” gasped Kent. “Was any one hurt?”
“And that we can’t say. The young lady has not been sleeping there lately but yesterday she came and got the key and did not return it, so I thought she must have slept there last night! This morning we can find no trace of her. The bomb did much damage, but surely it could not have destroyed her completely.”
“Destroyed her! What young lady?”
“Why, Mademoiselle Kean, of course.”
Kent was glad of the strong arm of Jim Castleman. He certainly needed a support but only for a moment. He pushed through the crowd and made his way to the shattered wall of the studio. The bomb had not done so much damage as might have been expected. The front wall was fallen and the skylight was broken all over the floor. The chairs and easels were piled up like jackstraws at the beginning of a game. The bedrooms were uninjured but the balcony where Judy and Molly had slept that happy winter in Paris had fallen.
Would Judy have slept up on the roost just for auld lang syne or would she have occupied a more comfortable bedroom? If she had been blown into such small bits that there was nothing to tell the tale, why should these other things have escaped? There were the blue tea cups in the china closet uninjured, although most of them were turned over, showing that the shock had reached them, too. What was that blue thing lying on the divan in the corner under untold débris?
Kent pulled off the timbers and broken glass and unearthed Judy’s blue serge dress, which was waiting to be dyed a dismal black. He clasped it in his arms in an agony of apprehension. Letters fell out of the pocket. He recognized his mother’s handwriting, also Molly’s. So, Judy had heard from Kentucky! He stuffed them back in the jacket.
“Jim, I simply don’t believe she was here. I couldn’t have slept all night like such a lummux if she—if she——”
“Yes, old fellow! I know! I don’t believe she was here, either.”