"But you were about to make a suggestion. What was it?"
"If it was anything at all, it was that you chase yourself out there among the trees, find Beatrice and Nesbit Farnum, and take her away from him," exclaimed this impetuous young woman, who found delight in expressing herself in the slang of the day. Duncan shrugged his shoulders, and uttered the one word:
"Why?"
But Sally did not vouchsafe any reply at all, to the question. She tossed her head, and darted along the wide hall toward a rear door.
Duncan gazed after her for a moment, and then, with another shrug of his shoulders, he passed on out of the house, and made his way swiftly toward the stables and the garage, for he was determined to get out his car and to return to the city, forthwith.
His surprise was great, when, on arriving at the door of the garage, he found that Sally had preceded him, and, as he drew near, she turned a white, scared face toward him, exclaiming:
"Oh, Roderick! What do you think? Patricia has gone."
"Gone!" he echoed. "Gone where? Gone, when? What do you mean, Sally?"
"She has gone. She has taken one of Jack's cars, and gone home."
"Alone?"