With this he had to be content. And leaving her with Ann he went to his room, hoping to get some work done. His money was about gone. He must get some of the hated skits ready for the Sunday paper from which he drew a hand-to-mouth living.
In the middle of the forenoon he heard Ann's step pounding heavily up the stairs of the quiet house.
"She's away out again, Misther Jimmie!" the big woman panted. "I but shtepped out the alley to the corner for an onion. An' I'm just back this blessed minute. An' she's away!"
Wardwell started for the door, but came back. "There's no use going out now," he said. "I wouldn't know where to look. Probably she has started off on some new thought. But about noon I'll know where to look for her. Don't worry, Ann; she's not in the least danger." But it was a confidence he was far from feeling, whatever his common sense might tell him.
Long before noon he was walking Fifth Avenue expecting to see Augusta upon her quest among the working women. But Augusta did not come. He went home, not knowing what else to do, and sat stupid and useless through the entire afternoon, waiting until it should be time to go to look for her in the places they had been haunting in the evenings of the last week or so.
Just as the dusk was gathering he heard her key in the door and ran down the stairs. She staggered into his arms in the hall and began to cry fearfully. They were the first tears that he had seen her cry in these weeks, and he did not know whether it was good or bad.
"Oh Jimmie, Jimmie," she cried, with the first direct appeal that she had made to him, "they wouldn't let me have her! They wouldn't let her come with me! I wanted to take her by the hand and bring her home. And they wouldn't—She wanted to come!—They wouldn't let me! Oh, Jimmie, they said she was a crazy woman! My darling good mamma! She isn't crazy, she just forgot.
"She said she was Rosie Dale—that was her name before she was married—and that she was eighteen. They had it in the book! And the man laughed!"
"Yes, yes, dear. No, no, of course not," Wardwell repeated soothingly as he carried her up to her mother's room. When Ann had brought her something to drink he sat down beside the lounge on which Augusta lay and began to question quietly.
"Tell Ann and me," he prompted, "just where you went first."