t his
terrible responsibility on her shoulders."

One item of this description of himself the badgered Herbert could not
bear in silence, although he had just declared that since the truth was
so ill-respected among his persecutors he would open his mouth no more
until the day of his death. He passed over "bad," but furiously stated
his height in feet, inches, and fractions of inches.

Aunt Fanny shook her head in mourning. "That may be, Herbert," she said
gently. "But you must try to realize it can't bring poor young Mr. Dill
back to his family."

Again Herbert just looked at her. He had no indifference more profound
than that upon which her strained conception of the relation between
cause and effect seemed to touch;--from his point of view, to be missing
should be the lightest of calamities. It is true that he was concerned
with the restoration of Noble Dill to the rest of the Dills so far as
such an event might affect his own incomparable misfortunes, but not
otherwise. He regarded Noble and Noble's disappearance merely as unfair
damage to himself, and he continued to look at this sorrowing great-aunt
of his until his thoughts made his strange gaze appear to her so
hardened that she shook her head and looked away.

"Poor young Mr. Dill!" she said. "If someone could only have been with
him and kept talking to him until he got used to the idea a little!"

Cousin Virginia nodded comprehendingly. "Yes, it might have tided him
over," she said. "He wasn't handsome, nor impressive, of course, nor
anything like that, but he always spoke so nicely to people on the
street. I'm sure he never harmed even a kitten, poor soul!"

"I'm sure he never did," Herbert's mother agreed gently. "Not even a
kitten. I do wonder where he is now."

But Aunt Fanny uttered a little cry of protest. "I'm afraid we may
hear!" she said. "Any moment!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

These sympathetic women had unanimously set their expectation in so
romantically pessimistic a groove that the most tragic news of Noble
would have surprised them little. But if the truth of his whereabouts
could have been made known to them, as they sat thus together at what
was developing virtually into his wake, with Herbert as a compulsory
participant, they would have turned the session into a riot of
amazement. Noble was in the very last place (they would have said, when
calmer) where anybody in the world could have even madly dreamed of
looking for him! They