“Then she is probably in. the garden.  I’ll ask Olive to call her.”

“Why not call her yourself?  I have a feeling—­”

The professor rose from his untasted coffee.  When Aunt Caroline “had a feeling” it was useless to argue.

“Are you sleeping badly again, Benis?” asked Aunt Caroline.  “Your eyes look like burnt holes in a blanket.”

“Nothing to bother about, Aunt.”  He stepped out quickly into the sunny garden.  But Desire was not among the flowers, neither was she on the lawn nor in the shrubbery.  A few moments’ search proved that she was not out of doors at all.  Benis returned to his coffee.  He found it quite cold and no waiting Aunt Caroline to pour him another cup.  “I wonder,” he pondered idly, “why, when one really wants coffee, it is always cold.”

Then he forgot about coffee suddenly and completely, for Aunt Caroline came in with the news that Desire was gone.

“Gone where?” asked Spence stupidly.

“That,” said Aunt Caroline, “she leaves you to inform me.”

With the feeling of being someone else and acting under compulsion he took the few written lines which she held out to him.  “Dear Aunt Caroline,” he read, “Benis will tell you why I am going.  But I cannot go without thanking you.  I’ll never forget how good you have been—­Desire.”

“I had a feeling,” said Aunt Caroline with mournful triumph.  “It never deceives me, never!  As I passed our dear girl’s room this morning, I said, ’She is not there’—­and she wasn’t!”

“I think you mentioned that the door was open.”

“That has nothing to do with it.  I—­”

“Where did you find this note?”

“On her dressing table.  When you went into the gar-den, I went upstairs.  I had a feeling—­”

“Was there nothing else?  No note for me?”

“No,” in surprise.  “She says you know all about it.  Don’t you?”

“Something, not all.”

Aunt Caroline was, upon occasion, quite capable of meeting a crisis.  Remembering the neglected coffee, she poured a cup for each of them.

“Here,” said she, “drink this.  You look as if you needed it.  I must say, Benis, that you don’t act as if you knew anything, but if you do, you’d better tell me.  Where is Desire?”

“I don’t know.”

“Umph!  Then what you do know won’t help us to find her.  Finding her is the first thing.  I wonder,” thoughtfully, “if she told John?”

A wintry smile passed over the professor’s lips.

“I shall ask him,” he said.

Aunt Caroline proceeded with her own deducing.  “There is no one else she could have told,” she reasoned.  “She did not tell you.  She did not tell me.  Naturally, she would not tell Mary.  And a girl nearly always tells somebody.  So it must be John.  I hope you are sufficiently ashamed of yourself, Benis?  I told you Desire wouldn’t understand your attentions to Mary.  Though I admit I did not dream she would take them quite so seriously.  I don’t envy you your explanations.”