“Of course,” Mrs. Webb said, to her daughter, “Kim saw the truth at last. He realized how undesirable it was that he should marry Elsie, and he chose this way of getting out of it. Not a very commendable way but I, for one, don’t blame the poor boy.”
“You wouldn’t blame him if he had chosen to kill Elsie, as a way to escape marrying her,” Henrietta returned, smiling grimly.
“Nothing could make me blame my son,” and Mrs. Webb complacently folded her hands.
“But, if we have guessed the truth, Kim ought to let us know soon where he really is.”
“That’s the queer part,” mused Miss Webb. “Wherever he is, how did he lock his door after him?”
The afternoon dragged away, and the evening passed, somehow.
There was no further communication between the two houses; it had been agreed that if either family heard any news of the missing bridegroom they would at once notify the others.
Fenn Whiting went back and forth from one house to the other several times. He, as best man, was alertly ready to do anything, in any way bearing on the matter. He was in possession of the wedding ring, the tickets for the projected honeymoon trip, luggage checks, and all such details of a best man’s duties. Whiting’s all-around efficiency and his general capability made him a valuable assistant to a bridegroom, and Kimball Webb had entrusted everything to him.
“You’d better take the ring, Elsie, and keep it,” Whiting said to her, in the evening. “I’ll try to redeem the tickets, and I’ll cancel the reservations as far as I can. Understand, I’m perfectly sure Kim will turn up soon, but there’s no use holding staterooms and hotel rooms. You see, if the boy has met with some accident,—and to my mind that’s more plausible than a joke,—it may be a day or so before we hear from him, that is, assuming—oh, hang it all! It’s so mysterious there’s no assuming anything! What do you want me to tell the reporters?”
“Tell them the truth!” Elsie replied; “there’s no sense in holding anything back. And full details may help to find him. I have no fear that Kim has deserted me,—that’s too ridiculous,—though Henrietta Webb does more than hint at it! No, Fenn, Kimball is as true to me as a magnet to the pole; I don’t care who knows the whole story. Kim has done nothing wrong. A wrong has been done to him.”