plaguing his mind despite his impatient attempts to dismiss it as
nonsense, was the possibility that she was actually looking for that job
she'd talked about. Answering advertisements!

Toward four, when he had stopped trying to do anything but wait for his
appointment with her, Rush and Graham came in, precipitately, and asked
for a private talk with him. He took them into his inner office, relieved
a little at the arrival of reenforcements but disappointed too.

"If you're anxious about Mary," he began by saying, "I can assure you
that she is all right. She's at the Dearborn Avenue house, or was last
night and will be again later this afternoon. I talked to her on the
phone this morning."

"Thank God!" said Rush.

Graham dropped into a chair with a gesture of relief even more
expressive.

Rush explained the cause of their alarm. Old Pete had driven in to
Hickory Hill around two o'clock with a letter, addressed to Mary, from
Paula, and on being asked to explain offered the disquieting information
that she had left Ravinia for the farm, the afternoon before. They had
driven straight to town and to Wallace as the likeliest source of
information.

In the emotional back-lash from his profound disquiet about his sister,
suddenly reassured that there was nothing--well, tragic to be
apprehended, Rush allowed himself an outburst of brotherly indignation.
He'd like to know what the devil Mary meant by giving them a fright like
that. Why hadn't she telephoned last night? Nothing was easier than
that. Or more to the point still, why hadn't she come straight out to
the farm as she had told her father she meant to do, instead of spending
the night in town?

Wallace would have let him go on, since it gave him a little time he
wanted for deciding what line to take. But Graham, it seemed,
couldn't stand it.

"Shut up, Rush!" he commanded. (You are to remember that he was three
years his partner's senior.) "Mary never did an--inconsiderate thing in
her life. If she seems to have forgotten about us, you can be dead sure
there's a reason."

"I agree with Stannard," Wallace put in, "that she wants to be dealt
with--gently. She must have been having a rather rotten time."

He hadn't yet made up his mind how far to take them into his confidence
as to what he knew and guessed, but Rush made an end of his hesitation.

"Tell us, for heaven's sake, what it's all about.--Oh, you needn't
mind Graham. He's as much in it as any of us.