“Well, how do you suppose I'm ever going to get my work done if I have to make fires for you? Where's George, I'd like to know! That's his business, anyway.”
Mrs. Craig, herself wondering where George was, went to the next room and built the fire herself.
A few moments later Halloran knocked at the door, and Miss Davies and he were admitted. And while Miss Davies was opening the subject, trying with the utmost delicacy to obtain the confidence of this woman, trying to show by simple, honest words how sincerely she and Halloran were interested in George, another boy, a small, wizened-faced boy with thin legs, was hiding in a doorway across the street, watching with keen little eyes for their exit and pondering with a keen little mind on their probably next move.
Miss Davies was beginning to wonder if she had not overestimated the difficulty of talking with Mrs. Craig. Or was it the present topic that made it a little easier? For she had come now with no offers of food, or coal for the fires; but only to talk about George, to see if she and the young man with her might not, by giving their time and interest, make the search easier. And the main difficulty seemed now to be that the woman knew no more about it than they did.
“It was early last week,” she explained, speaking quietly, in a voice that had been brought to a dead level by habitual restraint. “He went off to work as usual, after dinner, and said he would be back to supper. I don't know where he can be. He has never been a bad boy.”
Lizzie, now that so much trouble was going on about George, began to feel unusually sorrowful herself—was even moved to tears, and had to go into the other room and bustle about getting supper ready before she could bring her feelings under control.
“Mr. Halloran thought the best thing would be to go out and search for him,” said Miss Davies. “And he thought you could help—:—” She turned to him and finished by saying, “Won't you explain to Mrs. Craig?”
“Can you tell us,” he responded, “of some place in the neighbourhood that George has been in the habit of going to—some place where he has friends?”
Mrs. Craig shook her head. “No; when he was not working he was almost always at home.”
“But he surely had acquaintances. You see, Mrs. Craig, we must have some place to start from.”