"And the police haven't got a clew yet?"
"No, nor the detectives."
"What I can't understand is why she didn't wait in the ladies' room until you came, papa. She might have known you would come sometime."
"We don't know yet that she got as far as Boston," said Mrs. Fleming.
"Why, Uncle Tom's telegram in answer to papa's that he saw her off on the 11.30 train proves that."
"It doesn't prove that she came through to Boston."
"'Came through'! Why, upon earth, should she leave the cars before she reached Boston?"
"She might have made the acquaintance of some young people, and stepped off at a restaurant station with them to buy fruit, and so got left."
"But she would have taken a later train then, and papa has been to the later ones."
"Don't—don't wonder and speculate any more why a little girl of ten years didn't do exactly as a grown-up person would have done," burst forth Uncle John. "The whole blame lies with us, or with Tom and me. We should never have allowed such a child to be sent off alone like that."