Roy returned with the announcement that Apgar was sure Rex had not been on his train. “Then there is only one other theory.” Mrs. Pell looked very grave as she spoke. “What is that, mother?” She did not reply at once. Reginald was very dear to her. She hated to expose his failings even to his own brother. But it must be done. “You remember, Roy,” she went on, “how he teased me to let him go to New Haven with young Harrington? It is possible he may have gone after all. I wish you would go in next door and see if you can find out.” Roy instantly recalled the three dollars Rex had borrowed from him, but he said nothing of it. He went at once to make his call next door. He asked for Mrs. Harrington, telling the servant that he wished to see her on a matter of importance. He sent up his name, Roy Pell. “You are the young man my son speaks of,” said Mrs. Harrington when she appeared in the great drawing room, and put up her lorgnette to survey her caller. “No, that is Reginald, my brother. I called in to find out if he went off to New Haven with your son.” “What! you know nothing of his whereabouts yourselves?” Mrs. Harrington did not seek to conceal her surprise. Roy felt humiliated, but there was nothing for it but to admit the fact. “We are afraid he may have gone off without my mother’s leave,” he said. “He was very anxious to go with your son. He had an invitation to go down to Marley the same day. We thought he had gone, but we find now that he has not been there.” “Your mother did not wish him to go with Dudley, you say?” There was a trace of severity in Mrs. Harrington’s tones. “She thought he had better not. He is much older than Rex. Do you know whether or not they went off together?” “I heard Dudley say something about having invited young Pell to go to New Haven with him. They went to the station together.” “Then Rex must have gone. I am very sorry to have troubled you, Mrs. Harrington.” Roy now made a little bow, and he hurried off. “Then he wanted that three dollars from me to spend on the trip,” he was saying to himself. “But that wouldn’t have been enough. He must have used the money he said he was saving up for mother’s present. Ah, Reggie, I didn’t think it of you!” When he told the news at home there was a good deal of discussion concerning what ought to be done about it. “Let him alone,” suggested Jess. “He feels bad enough about it by this time.” “But I don’t know when he will be back,” said Mrs. Pell. Eva suggested that they write him a letter in care of young Harrington and request him to come home at once, but it was Sydney’s idea that was acted on. A telegraphic dispatch was sent to Dudley Harrington, Yale, New Haven. “Is Reginald Pell with you?” it ran. The answer came duly, “No, he is not.”