The hour that followed was a very trying one for everybody. No one even remembered the unfinished charade. Ada and her friends went home, after exacting a promise from Molly to call up the moment there was any news, and the others sat on the piazza in the starlight and waited. Geraldine had stopped crying, but sat close to Mrs. Cranston, holding her hand, as if finding comfort in the mere fact of being near one so kind and sensible as Stephen’s mother. Paul and Frank were sent to bed, but Jerry refused to go and sat on the steps at his twin sister’s feet, perhaps finding more comfort there than he would have cared to admit. Jerry was not a demonstrative boy, but he loved Geraldine better than any one else in the world, and Gretel also held a very warm place in his heart. Molly and Kitty whispered together in the hammock and Stephen and his aunt walked up and down the piazza, arm in arm.
“It’s ten o’clock!” exclaimed Geraldine, as the chiming of the grandfather’s clock on the stairs fell upon their ears. “It’s more than an hour since Mr. Chester telephoned.”
“We shall hear something in a few minutes, I am sure,” Mrs. Cranston said. “It often takes some time to get long distance, you know. Ah, I thought so. There’s the telephone now.”
It was Stephen who reached it first, and was talking when the others entered the library.
“Is that you, Uncle Paul? Yes, I can hear you all right. Any news?”
There was a breathless pause while Mr. Chester talked at the other end of the wire. Then Stephen hung up the receiver. One glance at his face was enough to tell them there was no good news.
“They haven’t found her yet,” he said. “They don’t think she has met with an accident, though, for Mr. Douaine has telephoned all the hospitals, and no one answering her description has been brought in. Mr. Douaine has put the case in the hands of the police. Uncle Paul says he will call up again early in the morning.”
“Mrs. Chester, may I speak to you a moment?”
Mrs. Chester—who had been trying to soothe the hysterical Geraldine—turned at the sound of the voice, and found Jimmy Fairfax standing by her side.
“Certainly,” she said, and followed the young man out into the empty hall.