"There has been no interruption in the cable service, and our message must have reached Ancon within two or three hours after I sent it."
"Walter may have left the hospital by this time," said she, "but they ought to know his address."
"Yes. The department in which he is employed should be able to locate him at once. The whereabouts of every American must be on record."
Walter's silence tortured them. Like other fathers and mothers since the beginning, they imagined all sorts of mischances which might have befallen him, just as when he had lingered after dark at the skating-pond his mother was sure he had broken through the ice. Such crosses as these the right kind of parents must bear. It is part of the price they pay. On the Isthmus of Panama Walter Goodwin might consider himself a man, but in his own home, in the hearts of his own people, he was still a boy to be watched over, to be feared for, to inspire a thousand tender anxieties of which he would never be aware.
"It will be very hard to wait for a letter from him," murmured Mrs. Goodwin. "I have tried to be brave, but——"
"You have been brave and fine," and her husband kissed her. "Perhaps I should not have let him go. I find it difficult to apply myself to my day's work. I can write to the canal authorities asking them to make a search, but we could not expect a reply before three weeks."
At breakfast next morning Eleanor, whose faith in the ability of her masterful brother to conquer in any circumstances was still unshaken, declared with the air of one who had solved a problem:
"If I were the parent of an only son who was lost, strayed, or stolen, do you know what I'd do? I should take that money-order that has made all the trouble and use it to pay my way to the Isthmus of Panama as soon as I could."
"It would take a good deal more than forty dollars," replied Mrs. Goodwin, "and your father could not leave his business."