"No." The wire hummed, dragging his voice off to remoteness. "Has Miss Kelly come back?" "Where have you looked? I'll go hunt----" "You stay there." Then, suddenly loud, "You might call up the hospitals. I've notified the police station. They are flashing the description all over town." "Where are you now?" begged Catherine, but there was only silence, and the terminating click. Flora was at her elbow. "Ain't found him?" She clucked her tongue. "You better go on home, Flora." Catherine couldn't look at her. She felt a ghoulish contamination, setting her mind afire with horrible pictures. Spencer, run down in the snowy street. Spencer--"I must stay here anyway." Flora wavered. She wanted, Catherine knew, to see the end of this melodrama. "Your own family will need you," she urged. "Go on." Then, swiftly, to Marian, "Please keep Letty quiet. Mother wants to telephone." She closed the door and pulled the telephone directory to the desk. How many hospitals there were! Hundreds--Has a little boy been brought in, injured? He is lost. Unless he were terribly hurt, he could have told you who he is. Has a little boy been brought in--yes? He's nine--no, not red hair. The wind yelled down the well outside the window. Surely he wouldn't be hurt, and not be found. Still and unmoving, in some dark street--oh, no! No! She clutched her arm against her breast, as her finger ran down the dancing column of numbers. Someone at the door. She listened, unable to stand up. Miss Kelly came in, her face mottled with the cold, her hair in draggled wisps on her cheeks. "I don't know where to look next," she said. "I hunted up the addresses of some of the boys he plays with, but they are all home, and haven't seen him since school, not one of them." "When did you begin to hunt?" "Immediately." Miss Kelly was dignified, sure of her lack of blame. "We waited here for him, just as we always do. I thought it was too cold for Marian and Letty to wait at the corner." "He--he's always come straight home, hasn't he?" said Catherine, piteously. "Always. That's why----" she stopped. That's why, that's why--Catherine's mind picked up the words. That's why he must be hurt, unconscious somewhere, kidnaped--that little Italian boy who was found floating in the river--Spencer's face, white on black water--stop it! Not that! "Can you stay to see that Letty goes to bed?" Catherine turned to her endless task. "I haven't called all the hospitals yet." His gray eyes, long, with the wide space between, and the small, fine nose; fair boy's brows; mobile, eager lips. If I had been here, she thought, as she waited for the curt official voice to answer,--Has a little boy been brought in? If I had been here--oh, if--if---- * * * * *