“Let’s not—­talk about that part of it, Hilda.  Will you help me find her?”

“No,” said Hilda.  “She’s where she wants to be.  I’m not going to torture her by finding her for you—­and then letting her slip back again—­into hopelessness.  If you’ll promise to love her and believe she loves you—­I’ll try to find her.”

Bonbright shook his head.

“Then let her be.  No matter where she is, she’s better off than she would be if you found her—­and she tried to tell you and you wouldn’t believe. ...  You let her be.”

“She may be hurt, or sick. ...”

“If she were she’d let somebody know,” said Hilda, but in her own mind was a doubt of this.  She knew Ruth, she knew to what heights of fanaticism Ruth’s determination could rise, and that the girl was quite capable, more especially in her state of overwrought nerves, of dying in silence.

“I won’t help you,” she said, firmly.

Bonbright got up slowly, wearily.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “I thought you—­would help. ...  I’ll have to hunt alone, then. ...”  And before she could make up her mind to speak, to tell him she didn’t mean what she said, and that she would search with him and help him, he was gone.

The only thing he could think of to do was to go once more to their apartment and see if any trace of her could be picked up there.  Somebody must have seen her go.  Somebody must have seen the furniture going or heard where it was going. ...  Perhaps somebody might remember the name on the van.

He did not content himself with asking the janitor and his wife, who could tell him nothing.  He went from tenant to tenant.  Few of them remembered even that such a girl had lived there, for tenants in apartment houses change with the months.  But one woman, a spinster of the sort who pass their days in their windows and fill their lives meagerly by watching what they can see of their neighbors’ activities, gave a hint.  She was sure she remembered that particular removal on account of the young woman who moved looking so pale and anxious.  Yes, she was sure she did, because she told herself that something must have happened, and it excited her to know that something had happened so close to her.  Evidently she had itched with curiosity for days.

“It was a green van—­I’m sure it was a green van,” she said, “because I was working a centerpiece with green leaves, and the van was almost the same shade. ...  Not quite the same shade, but almost.  I held my work up to the window to see, and the van was a little darker. ...”

“Wasn’t there a name on it?  Didn’t you notice the name?”

The spinster concentrated on that.  “Yes, there was a name.  Seems to me it began with an ‘S,’ or maybe it was a ‘W.’  Now, wasn’t that name Walters?  No, seems more as if it was Rogers, or maybe Smith.  It was one of those, or something like it.  Anyhow, I’m sure it began with a ’B.’...”

That was the nearest Bonbright came to gleaning a fact.  A green van.  And it might not have been a green van.  The spinster’s memory seemed uncertain.  Probably she had worked more than one centerpiece, not all with green leaves.  She was as likely to have worked yellow flowers or a pink design. ...  But Bonbright had no recourse but to look for a green van.