Roy sent a telegram to his mother Saturday night making it as hopeful as he could, but his own heart was growing heavier and heavier. Atkins did his best to cheer him up, and under other circumstances Roy would have had a most enjoyable time. But he could not keep his thoughts from Rex. He went home on Monday, fearful of the meeting with his mother. He felt at times as if the worst news, if it might be but definite, would be better to carry home than those tidings he must take, which would keep them all in such awful suspense. Sydney had recovered, but the shock of Roy’s announcement threw him back into a relapse. And yet he insisted on seeing Roy. “Mr. Tyler’s money has not made us happy after all, has it, Roy?” he said, after the sad affair had been talked over. “I was afraid that it wouldn’t, Syd. Still, this might have happened just the same. You have not been well though, old fellow, since that night you came over to Burdock to make the old man’s will.” “Have you noticed that, Roy?” said Sydney quickly. “Yes, it seems, as you say, that we must pay up for having the money in some way. But where can poor Rex be? I wonder if he is ashamed or afraid to come home?” Anxiously the reports from the detectives were awaited. But when they came they were only depressing. Positively no trace of the missing boy could be found. Advertisements were inserted in the New York and Philadelphia papers, but nothing came of them. The family were by this time well nigh distracted. They had not even the poor satisfaction of mourning the lost as one dead. They could only wait and hope, but as the days passed into a week, this last seemed futile. The time came for school to open, but Roy had little heart to go alone. Still, he must attend to his education. The first week of it dragged slowly by. Some of his Marley friends wanted him to come down there and spend his Saturday. He had not yet decided Friday night whether he wanted to go, when the door bell rang, and a messenger appeared with a telegram for Roy Pell. It was dated at some town in Jersey of which he had never heard, and was very brief, but the one word signed to it was worth a hundred lines, for that name was “Rex.” “All safe. Will write soon.” That was all, and when he read it to the family, the wild exclamations of joy were succeeded by perplexed impatience. “Why didn’t he tell us where to find him?” Eva wanted to know. “Why didn’t he send word to mother?” added Jess. “Why does he not explain his long silence?” said Mrs. Fell fearing the worst. Sydney was away at Harrisburg, and Roy decided that instead of going to Marley the following day, he would find out where this New Jersey town was and hunt up Rex at once. Mrs. Pell wanted to go with him, but Roy reminded her that he might have considerable difficulty in tracing Rex, so it was decided that she wait until she heard from him.