“I think it quite probable that she would not have told him.”
“What exactly do you mean by that, Rose?”
“Mean?—oh, nothing.”
“Then there’s no use talking of such a thing. I’m quite sure that if Peter had been at the Mounts’, Stella would have sent him over directly she heard about Father.”
At that moment Wills came into the room with a note for Doris.
“That must be from Starvecrow,” she said, taking it. “Yes, it’s from Mrs. Asher—‘Peter hasn’t been in yet, and we are beginning to feel anxious. He told us he was going out to shoot rabbits and one of the farm men saw him start out with his gun and Breezy. Of course he may have met someone and gone home with them to dinner. As you have a ’phone, perhaps you could ring up one or two places.”
“We could ring up the Parishes,” said Jenny—“he may have gone there. Or the Hursts—aren’t they on the ’phone? I don’t think the Fullers are.”
“It’s an extraordinary thing to me,” said Rose, “that he should stop out like this without at least sending a message to his wife. He might know how anxious she’d be.”
“Peter isn’t the most thoughtful or practical being on earth. But there’s no good making conjectures. I’m going to ’phone every place I can think of.”
Jenny spoke irritably. Rose never failed to annoy her, and she was growing increasingly anxious about Peter. She had told the others of his visit that afternoon, but she had not told them of his queer, gruff, silent manner. Not that she had seen, or saw now, anything sinister in it, but she could not rid herself of the thought that Peter had been “queer,” and that to queer people queer things may happen.