“Don’t you think it possible,” asked Sheridan, turning eagerly to Doctor Moore “that there was something in that pink envelope which she handed to you—a slip of paper or something of that sort? You wouldn’t have noticed that, of course.”
“On the contrary,” replied the clergyman, with a smile, “I surely would have noticed it. I can’t imagine what you are driving at, my friend; but I am quite positive that the envelope she handed to me was empty.”
“What makes you so sure of that?” demanded Owen incredulously.
“Because,” came the slowly delivered answer, “I recall distinctly that I held the envelope up against the electric light. You see, it looked to me as if the paper it was made of was exceedingly thin, and I thought there might be a possibility of that hundred-dollar bill showing through and attracting attention, so I held the empty envelope against the electric globe to ascertain just how transparent it really was. I could see right through it, and if there had been any object inside, I should surely have noticed it and called the young lady’s attention to it.”
Owen’s heart sank into his boots as this hope was dispelled. He walked out of the clergyman’s house more dejected than when he had entered it. Gloomily he wended his way to the real-estate office of Walter K. Sammis.
“Any word of Miss Worthington?” he inquired of the girl’s employer.
“No,” replied Mr. Sammis, with a frown; “and I can’t understand what’s happened to her. I sent around to her boarding house, just now, and they say that she isn’t there—hasn’t been there since yesterday evening. It’s really very strange that she should be absent like this, without leaving me any word.
“Surely,” he muttered, speaking more to himself than to Owen, “the little row we had yesterday afternoon can’t have anything to do with it?”
“The little row?” repeated Sheridan quickly.[Pg 46]
Mr. Sammis frowned. “Yes; Miss Worthington and I had a little difference; but I scarcely think that was enough to make her go off and leave me in the lurch like this. It was over a financial matter. She requested me to advance her fifty dollars—said she was badly in need of the money, and offered to pay it off in weekly installments, out of her wages. I told her that I regretted that I could not consent to such an unbusinesslike arrangement.”