“I can’t imagine.  It’s the strangest thing I ever heard of.”  Roy looked really worried.  “I thought he might possibly be at the Minturns’, but he wouldn’t have gone there till he had been here.”

“Let down that seat behind, jump in, and I’ll drive you over there,” said Scott.

But Charlie had not seen or heard from Rex in ten days, nor was news to be obtained of him from any other of his Marley friends.  Roy went home seriously alarmed.

He hated to bring such a report to his mother, but he knew it would be better that she should be informed of all the facts.

She was somewhat stunned at first at the tidings, but quickly rallied.

“We must find him,” she said.  “Something has happened to him.  Did you think to ask Apgar if he remembered seeing Rex on his train Wednesday night?”

Apgar was the conductor on the 5:30 express.

“No, I’ll go down to the station and ask him this afternoon before he goes out.”

Roy returned with the announcement that Apgar was sure Rex had not been on his train.

“Then there is only one other theory.”  Mrs. Pell looked very grave as she spoke.

“What is that, mother?”

She did not reply at once.  Reginald was very dear to her.  She hated to expose his failings even to his own brother.  But it must be done.

“You remember, Roy,” she went on, “how he teased me to let him go to New Haven with young Harrington?  It is possible he may have gone after all.  I wish you would go in next door and see if you can find out.”

Roy instantly recalled the three dollars Rex had borrowed from him, but he said nothing of it.  He went at once to make his call next door.

He asked for Mrs. Harrington, telling the servant that he wished to see her on a matter of importance.  He sent up his name, Roy Pell.

“You are the young man my son speaks of,” said Mrs. Harrington when she appeared in the great drawing room, and put up her lorgnette to survey her caller.

“No, that is Reginald, my brother.  I called in to find out if he went off to New Haven with your son.”

“What! you know nothing of his whereabouts yourselves?”

Mrs. Harrington did not seek to conceal her surprise.  Roy felt humiliated, but there was nothing for it but to admit the fact.

“We are afraid he may have gone off without my mother’s leave,” he said.  “He was very anxious to go with your son.  He had an invitation to go down to Marley the same day.  We thought he had gone, but we find now that he has not been there.”

“Your mother did not wish him to go with Dudley, you say?”

There was a trace of severity in Mrs. Harrington’s tones.

“She thought he had better not.  He is much older than Rex.  Do you know whether or not they went off together?”

“I heard Dudley say something about having invited young Pell to go to New Haven with him.  They went to the station together.”