"All right," Ray admitted. "But, if you don't want to be guyed, stick to the facts. Go on down to the office, Grayson will be just about coming in. Tell him I sent you. He'll give the word to the boys as they're going out on their assignments. If anything has happened to the woman, they'll get the thread somewhere." Wardwell was more or less at home in Newspaper Row, and he thoroughly believed that no accident happening in the city could slip through the net of active intelligence centered there. When he had gotten assurance that the word would be passed to all the reporters going out for their rounds, that every newspaper in the city would be informed, that every police blotter and hospital record would be scanned, he started back to the house with the sure feeling that he had done all that was possible. Augusta listened, dry-eyed, almost listless, it seemed. She did not say anything. It was plain that she had expected nothing from his search. And Wardwell was chilled by the obvious fact, that he had really accomplished nothing. Augusta sat a little while, not seeming to notice that Wardwell had stopped speaking. Her soft blue eyes took on a deep, dark blue in which there was no visible expression. Her features were strained and sharp, as though she reached somewhere to another medium of knowledge, outside the common senses. After a little she said vaguely: "She is not hurt. Not that way. She cannot be found that way. She has lost her thought. I've never yet called to her without getting an answer." "Eh, what's that?" questioned Jimmie sharply. The girl seemed to be awakened by his voice. She shivered and suddenly jumped up from her chair. "What was I saying--? I don't remember." "You were saying something about calling her and always getting an answer. I don't think you ought to worry so," he soothed. "We haven't the least reason to think that anything's happened her. It couldn't be anything bad, or we'd know of it before now." Augusta moved quietly out of the common parlor where she had been sitting by the window, and stood at the glass in the hall, putting on her coat. She had been in street dress and had evidently only been waiting for Wardwell to come in before she should go out. "What have you eaten today?" Wardwell asked, trying to interpose the commonplace, for he was frightened at the strange suppressed quiet of the girl. "I had my breakfast," she said, without turning. "Yes, but it's 'long in the afternoon now. You mustn't think of going out without something. Come into the kitchen and we'll see if Ann hasn't some tea, or something." "Will you make her eat, Misther Jimmie!" Ann appealed. "She's beyond me. Her worritin' about Rose Wildin' that's as safe in the sthreet as a blessed child! Sure, she stepped into a neighbor's somewhere an' had a bite an' a chat. An' now, I'll bet ye what ye dare, she's calyin' over about Jimmie Hearn's, askin' the price o' things she don't want."