'They went out of our way.'
'But you sometimes go to New York.'
'Passing through, to Washington. I could not have time to search for people whose address I did not know.'
'I cannot understand why you did not know it. They were not the sort of people to be left to themselves. A hypochondriack father, who thought he was dying, and a young girl just growing up to need a kind mother's care, which she had not. I would give more than I can tell you to find her again!'
'What could you possibly do for her, Pitt? You, reading law and living in chambers in the Temple,—in London,—and she a grown young woman by this time, and living in New York. No doubt her father is quite equal to taking care of her.'
Pitt made no reply. His mother repeated her question. 'What could you do for her?'
She was looking at him keenly, and did not at all like a faint smile which hovered for a second upon his lips.
'That is a secondary question,' he said. 'The primary is, Where is she?
I must go and find out.'
'Your father thinks they have gone back to England. It would just be lost labour, Pitt.'
'Not if I found that was true.'