“Now that's just like her,” he said hoarsely. “That matron was always a hard woman. And to think that in that great house of love and pity nobody——”
“I'm forgetting something, brother.”
“What is it?”
“The porter told me that the nurse called for her letters from time to time. She had been there that night—not half an hour before.”
“Then you followed her, didn't you? You asked which, way she had gone, and you hurried after her?”
“Yes; but half an hour in London is a week anywhere else. Let anybody cross the street and she is lost—more lost to sight than a ship in a storm on the ocean. And then it was New Year's Eve, and the thoroughfares were crowded, and thousands of women were coming and going—and—what could I do?” he said helplessly.
John answered scornfully: “What could you do? Do you ask me what you could do?”
“What would you have done?”
“I should have tramped every street in London and looked into the face of every woman I met until I had found her. I should have worn my shoes to the welt and my skin to the bone before I should have come crawling home like a snail with my shell broken over my head!
“Don't be hard on me, brother, least of all now, when I have come home like a snail, as you say, with my shell broken. I was very tired and ill and did all I could. If I had been strong like you and brave-hearted I might have struggled longer. Bid I did tramp the streets and look into the women's faces. She must have been among them, if she's living the life you speak of; but God would not let me find her. Why was it that my search was fruitless? Perhaps there was evil in my heart at first—I don't mind telling you that now—but I swear to you by Him who died for us that at last I only wanted to find my sister that I might save her. But I am such a helpless creature, and——”