With the best of intentions she called upon Fenie to find out all about it, and she found the girl in a state of high excitement, for she had been helping Trif to search every place in the house where those awful sketches could possibly have been put, for Phil, like many another man, was an adept at dropping the contents of his pockets in unexpected places. Kate was thinking of nothing but the business on which she had come, so she proceeded promptly to business. "Harry seems quite unhappy," she began bluntly. "He is entirely unlike his usual merry self." "Indeed?" replied Fenie vacantly. "Yes; he looks as if he had slept scarcely a wink last night." "Pshaw!" exclaimed Fenie with a slight frown. Kate was somewhat provoked at this, but she controlled herself and continued: "I asked him what was troubling him, but he wouldn't tell me, although he has always made me his confidant." Fenie looked uncomfortable, but she showed no sign of becoming communicative, so Kate went on: "Don't you suppose I would be of any service to you or him in the matter?" "Not in the slightest degree," said Fenie, with a start. She was thinking only of the ridiculousness of Kate assisting at the work of rummaging the pockets of the various garments which Phil had worn since he missed the sketches, but Kate naturally failed to imagine that, so she misconstrued the gesture. "I do hope, dear," she said, as sympathetically as she could, "that it isn't anything serious!" "But it is," said Fenie, looking as if she would like the subject dropped. For that very reason Kate clung to it determinedly. "Serious?--for two people who ought to love each other very dearly?" "Yes," replied Fenie bluntly. She was afraid to say much, for, if she gave Kate any clue to the matter, she did not know how much further she might be persuaded to go. She knew that her tongue sometimes ran away with her, and she was not going to let Kate know anything about the missing letter and its double contents. Suddenly Trif, who did not know that there was a visitor in the parlor, called Fenie, and the girl, glad of an excuse, hurried away with the promise that she would return in a moment. When, however, she explained to her sister, Trif told her she was very silly not to see that Kate was misunderstanding matters, and supposing there was trouble between Fenie and Harry. "But," said Fenie, "as she already knows that it concerns a couple who ought to love each other very dearly--those were her own words--she will think there is something wrong between her and Jermyn, or between you and Phil." Trif was perplexed by this view of the matter, so she and her sister set themselves to devise some way of throwing Kate off the scent, and, as neither of them had any experience in deceit, they evolved and discarded several plans in rapid succession.