Fumbling with her handkerchief and appearing apologetic for having spoken to him so sharply the night before, she told him that Alma had been away from home all night and had not returned yet. "Then, Mrs. Sprockett, there's only one thing for you to do," he said, "and that is to inform the police." "I have just come from the police station," Mrs. Sprockett said. "They sent me here. They told me that the best way to find a missing girl was through the newspapers. They said that in 99 cases out of 100 girls who disappear are either found or traced by the newspapers and newspaper men. "Of course, you know how much I regret having anything concerning Alma appear in the newspapers. I thought there was some other way to find her, some way that would attract less attention. But if it has to be, it has to be, and I'll do anything to bring my little girl back to us." "You will do the sensible thing if you permit the publication of Alma's picture and a brief story that she is missing," John said. Mrs. Sprockett drew from her bag a photograph of her daughter and gave John a description of her and the facts relative to her disappearance. "If anything has happened to her it will kill me," she said, as she rose to go. "I'll owe a debt I can never repay to the one who brings her back to me." The photograph of Alma and the brief story that went with it appeared in the second edition and John wondered if Mrs. Sprockett's husband had dared to make the suggestion that had sent his wife to the police. Soon after Mrs. Sprockett left the office, John, unable to wait a minute longer without hearing her voice, telephoned to Consuello's home. He wanted to tell her again that he loved her, and again and again, and he wanted to hear her tell him, as she had before he left her, that her "dreamings had come true, the brightest and the best." But it was Betty instead of Consuello who answered his call. "Conny is at the studio," Betty said. "She was called there unexpectedly concerning something about her new picture." "Did she tell you anything before she left?" he asked. Betty laughed. "She told me everything," she replied. "And is she happy?" he asked. "Happier than I have ever seen her," Betty assured him. "I'll tell her that you called." "That I called and that I----" he stopped himself. "Love her," Betty finished for him. "More and more every minute," he said, not to be abashed by Betty's good natured presumptuousness.