Maggie put on her hat and fastened a chain to Fritz’s collar, and then giving Richard a little smile, took blind Gilbert by the hand and led him out.
“Maggie is very wretched about her sister Lucille,” said Dido, confidentially, when left alone with Dick. “She went away two weeks before Mrs. Williams died, and she hasn’t come back yet.”
“Did she say that she would be away for any time?” Richard asked, with a show of interest that he was far from feeling. He was rather weary of troublesome girls just then.
“No, that’s it,” eagerly. “They hadn’t any idea that she wasn’t coming home.”
“Indeed! Where had she gone?”
“They don’t even know that. She said she was going out to do some extra work.”
“What kind of work?”
“She was a typewriter and a stenographer,” Dido explained, “and in the evenings she used to get extra work. This night she went to work, but she did not come back, and Maggie worries over it.”
“I should think she would,” Richard replied kindly. “Why didn’t Maggie go to her sister’s employer? Probably he could throw some light on the subject.”
“She did go to him, and he said Lucille had asked for two weeks’ vacation, which he had given her, and Maggie didn’t want to tell him that Lucille had gone out to do some extra work, for fear he wouldn’t like it. He paid her by the week, and didn’t know she did outside work. Maggie thought then she would be back, but now it is five weeks and she hasn’t come back yet.”