“All, Kate, mamma is suffering pitiably.  The doctor thinks it is typhoid, and he ordered me to remain away from her.  You must leave the house.  It won’t do for all of us to be ill together.  I may not be able to see you for days, until the crisis is past.  But you must continue the search, and you must let me know, from day to day, what you learn.  There are letters for you—­I hear mamma.  I will be back in a moment.”

Kate fairly hated herself for the passing thrill of relief over the timely illness that had intervened to expedite her mission.  She glanced over the letters.  There was one in her father’s hand, postmarked Acredale.  It contained no clew to his purposes, but she read tremblingly: 

“My daughter:  You are doing a foolish thing.  The search you propose can lead to nothing.  All that can be done has been done by his friends.  They have found no trace of him.  Women can not hope to succeed where so keen a man as Brodie has failed.  I have every confidence that in good time the matter will be cleared up, but you must remember that the Government and its agents have all they can do to manage and keep track of the millions of soldiers in the field, and they can not be expected to take much interest in the fate of the wounded or dead.  Always affectionately.

“Your Father.”

All doubt of her father’s sinister intervention in Jack’s disappearance now took the form of certainty in the girl’s mind.  When Olympia came back, a few moments later, Kate said, tenderly: 

“I have news from home.  I must go back at once.  It is less of a grief to me, since I should be banished from you if I were here.  I shall not be gone long.  I shall certainly be back as soon as you can receive me.  In the mean while, don’t despair.  I have been put on a new trail that I can not explain to you now.  But I can say this much, when you see me again you shall know whether Jack is alive or dead.”

Olympia, who had been so strong, cheery, and masterful when it had been a question of reassuring her mother, was now the stricken spirit.  She looked at Kate through swimming eyes, and her voice was lost in sobs as she tried to speak.  The girls held each other in a tearful silence, neither able to say what was in the minds of both.  Even the uncertainty had a sort of solace compared with the dreadful possibility of the worst.

“Remember, dear, you have your mother.  What is our poor grief to hers; what is our loss to hers?  It ought to comfort you to know that whatever human thought, courage, love can do to recover Jack, I shall do, just as you would in my place.  I am very strong and resolute now, and I am filled with hope—­so filled that I can not talk to you.  I dare not let you see how much I hope, lest if it be not fulfilled you will hate me for inspiring you with it.”

“I will hope.  I do believe you will do better than I should.  The loving are the daring—­you will find Jack.  I know it.”