She answered with averted eyes: "You know that our school broke up yesterday? Emmeline Nash went away by the nine-o'clock train, but she has never gone home."
"Has never gone home!" Percival repeated. "That is very strange. She must have met with some accident." There was no answer. "It may not be anything serious: surely, you are distressing yourself too much."
Judith looked up into his face with questioning eyes.
"Or perhaps it is some school-girl freak," Thorne went on. "Naturally, Miss Crawford must be very anxious, but don't make up your mind to the worst till you know for certain."
Still that anxious questioning look, as if she would read his very soul. Percival was startled and perplexed, and his eyes made no response. The girl turned away with a faint cry of impatience and despair: "And I am his own sister!"
Percival stood for a moment thunder-struck. Then "Bertie?" he said.
"But you did not think of him till I spoke," she answered passionately. "It was my doing—mine!"
"Where is Bertie?" Thorne asked the question with something of her fear in his eyes.
"I don't know. I had that yesterday morning."
He took a pencilled scrap of paper from her hand. Bertie had written, "I find I cannot be back this afternoon, probably not till to-morrow. Don't expect me till you see me, and don't be anxious about me. All right.—Your H.L."