"She's all right, isn't she, Jack? But we have gained something, at any rate. We've got some sort of a starting point. Now, if we can get Captain Haskin to help us, we may be able to start with the time when you turned up at Woodleigh, and trace some of Old Dan's movements. In that way, you see, it may be possible to get at the truth. It's a little more than we knew before we went to see them, at any rate."
"I think if we could see Miss Burton alone, Dick, she would treat us better, and tell us anything she knew."
"I'm sure of that, Jack. I'll try to see her, too. It seems wrong to try to do anything of that sort without letting her father know, but we haven't any choice. He certainly wouldn't allow her to see me if he knew that she was planning anything of that sort. I'll try that in the morning."
But in the morning when Dick went to the hotel, he was told that Mr. Burton and his daughter were gone, and that they had left no address. No one at the hotel could give him any idea of where they might be found, and they had left no orders, it was said, about the forwarding of any letters that might come for them. Dick, resourceful as he was, felt that he was facing a blind wall. There was nothing more for him to do. He could only wait, and trust that chance, or the detective abilities of Captain Haskin, would enable him to pick up the trail again.
Jack Danby, needless to say, was bitterly disappointed when he heard what Dick had to tell him the next evening, after his fruitless effort to see the Burtons again. Jack had never wavered in his belief that some time he would settle the mystery of his birth, that had worried him ever since he had been able to understand that he was set apart from others. To see a chance now and then just as he felt that he was about to read the secret have that chance vanish, was doubly hard. It was worse than if he had never had the hope of success.
But he tried hard not to let Dick Crawford see how badly the incident made him feel. Dick had done what he had for the best, and he had honestly thought that there was a chance for Jack's great ambition to be realized. He felt as disappointed as did Jack himself.
"Gee, Jack," he said, "who'd ever guess that a sweet girl like that would have such an old curmudgeon of a father? He's the limit! But there's nothing we can do right away. I think Captain Haskin will be able to find out where they came from, and where they've gone to without any trouble—that's the sort of thing detectives are supposed to be able to do."
"But if the old gentleman won't help us at all it's going to be pretty hard to get anything done. I've seen crusty old fellows like that before. When they've been deceived in a person it takes a long time before they're willing to trust anyone else—and, of course, you can't blame them so very much, at that.
"I'm not going to give up, Dick, anyhow. I'm surer than ever now that the secret of who I am is worth a lot of trouble, and I'll find out what it is if I never do anything else!"
"At that rate you're bound to win, Jack. Keep on trying."