“I will help you atone, Richard. I will try to be brave––and help Peter’s mother to bear it. I will love her for Peter and for you.”
“God’s blessing on you forever, Betty.” He was gone, striding away in the darkness, and Betty, with trembling steps, entered the house.
Carefully she removed every sign of his having been there. The bowl of water, and the cloth from which she had torn strips to bind his head she carried away, and the glass from which he had taken his milk, she washed, and even the crumbs of bread which had fallen to the floor she picked up one by one, so that not a trace remained. Then she took her drawing materials back to the studio, and after kneeling long at her bedside, and only saying: “God, help Richard, help him,” over and over, she crept in beside her little sister, and still weeping and praying chokingly clasped the sleeping child in her arms.
From that time, it seemed to Bertrand and Mary that a strange and subtle change had taken place in their beloved little daughter; for which they tried to account as the result of the mysterious disappearance of Peter Junior. He was not found, and Richard also was gone, and the matter after being for a long time the wonder of the village, became a thing of the past. Only the Elder cherished the thought that his son had been murdered, and quietly set a 167 detective at work to find the guilty man––whom he would bring back to vengeance.
Her parents were forced to acquaint Betty with the suspicious nature of Peter’s disappearance, knowing she might hear of it soon and be more shocked than if told by themselves. Mary wondered not a little at her dry-eyed and silent reception of it, but that was a part of the change in Betty.