“Mr. Eddy did not come home this noon,” said the man, with much deference.  He was full of awe at his employer, being a simple sort, and this was his second place, his first having been with the salt of the earth who made no such show as Carroll.  He reasoned that virtue and appearances must increase according to the same ratio.  “Mrs. Carroll sent me to the school this noon,” said the man, further, “and the ladies are very much worried.  The young ladies and Marie are out trying to find him.”  Marie was the maid, a Hungarian girl.

“Well, drive home as fast as you can,” said Carroll, with a sigh.  He reflected that his drive was spoiled; he also reflected that when the boy was found he should be punished.  Yet he did not look out of temper, and, in fact, was not.  It was in reality almost an impossibility for Arthur Carroll to be out of temper with one of his own family.

When Carroll reached home his wife came running down the stairs in a long, white tea-gown, and flung her arms around his neck.  “Oh, Arthur!” she sobbed out.  “What do you think has happened?  What do you think?”

Carroll raised his wife’s lovely face, all flushed and panting with grief and terror like a child’s, and kissed it softly.  “Nothing, Amy; nothing, dear,” he said.  “Don’t, my darling.  You will make yourself ill.  Nothing has happened.”

His sister Anna’s voice, clear and strained, came from the top of the stairs.  She stood there, holding an unbuttoned dressing-sack tightly across her bosom.  The day was warm and neither of the ladies had dressed.  “But, Arthur, he has not been home since morning,” said Anna Carroll, “and Martin has been to the school-house, and the master says that Eddy did not return at all after the noon intermission, and he did not come home to dinner, after all.”

“Yes, he did not come home to dinner,” said Mrs. Carroll; “and the butcher did send the roast of veal, after all.  I was afraid he would not, because he had not been paid for so long, and I thought Eddy would come home so hungry.  But the butcher did send it, but Eddy did not come.  He cannot have had a thing to eat since morning, and all he had for breakfast were rolls and coffee.  Thee egg-woman would not leave any more eggs, she said, until she was paid for the last two lots, and—­”

Carroll pulled out a wallet and handed a roll of notes, not to his wife, but to his sister Anna, who came half-way down the stairs and reached down a long, slender white arm for it.

“There,” said he, “pay up the butcher and the egg-woman to-morrow.  At least—­”

“I understand,” said Anna, nodding.

“What do you care whether the butcher or the egg-woman are paid or not, when all the boy we’ve got is lost?” asked Mrs. Carroll, looking up into her husband’s face with the tears rolling over her cheeks.

“That’s so,” said Anna, and she gave the roll of notes a toss away from her with a passionate gesture.  “Arthur, where do you suppose he is?”