“No, Dad, I don’t. But I don’t want Mr. Newton to give up hope until I can get on the job myself and help hunt for Ned. Even at that there is a bare chance he did go to New York. I’ll suggest that to his father.”
Mr. Newton received this ray of hope gratefully and Tom was glad he had thought of it, though he knew it was only a shadow. If Ned really had taken the midnight train, which was possible, there ought to come a message from him soon reporting on the selenium matter. Also, Ned, being a home-loving young man, would naturally be expected to send word to his family about his return.
“It will only hold matters back for a short time at best,” said Tom to his father. “But I didn’t imagine my laboratory was burned enough to destroy the bedrooms. Do you think there is much more damage, Jackson?”
“Not to your laboratory,” was the reassuring reply. “You see, after the explosion the flames shot up at the back before we knew it, and the draft sucked them in through the bedroom windows. So the upper part of the place was worse burned than the lower. But Ned Newton was not in there.”
“I’m glad of that,” Tom said.
He was beginning to feel the strain of what he had gone through, and he was glad when, a little later, Mary Nestor and her father motored over to see him.
Mr. Nestor had some time before taken a long trip North for his health, a trip that had greatly improved his condition.
“Oh, Tom, what happened?” exclaimed Mary when she saw him in bed, all bandaged up.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” he answered, with a smile. “It was like a premature Fourth of July celebration.”
“Are you much hurt?” the girl faltered.