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Page 60
The lady came out in the hall. She had a quiet serenity of manner, but
her soft eyes looked anxious. "Could she have stopped anywhere, dear?"
she said.
"You know, mother, there is not a single house between here and her own
where Clemency ever stops," said Annie. She was trembling all over.
James made a movement to go. "What are you going to do?" cried Annie.
"Stop at every house between here and Doctor Gordon's, and ask if the
people have seen her," replied James.
Then he ran back to the buggy, and heard as he went a little nervous
call from Annie, "Oh, let us know if--"
"I will let you know when I find her, Miss Lipton," he called back as he
gathered up the lines. He kept his word. He did stop at every house, and
at every one all knowledge of the girl was disclaimed. There were not
many houses, the road being a lonely one. He was met mostly by women who
seemed at once to share his anxiety. One woman especially asked very
carefully for a description of Clemency, and he gave a minute one. "You
say her mother is ill, too," said the woman. She was elderly, but still
pretty. She had kept her tints of youth as some withered flowers do,
and there seemed still to cling to her the atmosphere of youth, as
fragrance clings to dry rose leaves. She was dressed in rather a
superior fashion to most of the countrywomen, in soft lavender cashmere
which fitted her slight, tall figure admirably. James had a glimpse
behind her of a pretty interior: a room with windows full of blooming
plants, of easy-chairs and many cushioned sofas, beside book-cases. The
woman looked, so he thought, like one who had some private anxiety of
her own. She kept peering up and down the road, as they talked, as
though she, too, were on the watch for some one. She promised James to
keep a lookout for the missing girl. "Poor little thing," she murmured.
There was something in her face as she said that, a slight phase of
amusement, which caused James to stare keenly at her, but it had passed,
and her whole face denoted the utmost candor and concern.
When James reached home he had a forlorn hope that he should find
Clemency there; that from a spirit of mischief she had taken some cross
track over the fields to elude him. But when Aaron met him in the drive,
and he saw the man's frightened stare, he knew that she had not come.
It was unnecessary to ask, but ask he did. "She has not come?"
"No, Doctor Elliot," replied Aaron. He did not even chew. He tied the
horses, and followed James into the office, with his jaws stiff. Gordon
stood up when James entered, and looked past him for Clemency. "She was
not there?" he almost shouted.
"She left the Liptons at two o'clock, and I have stopped at every house
on my way, and no one has seen her."
"Oh, my God!" said Gordon, with a dazed look at James.
"What do you think?" asked James.
"I don't know what to think. I am utterly at a loss now. I supposed she
was entirely safe. There are almost no tramps at this season, and in
broad daylight. At two, you said? It is almost six. I don't know what to
do. What will come next? I must tell Clara something before I do
anything else."
Gordon rushed out of the office, and they heard his heavy tread on the
stairs. Aaron stared at James, and still he did not chew.
"It's almost dark," he said with a low drawl.
"Yes."
"We've got to take lanterns, and hunt along the road and fields."
"Yes, we have."
The dog, which had been asleep, got up, and came over to James, and laid
his white head on his knee. "We can take him," Aaron said. "Sometimes
dogs have more sense than us."
"That is so," said James. He felt himself in an agony of helplessness.
He simply did not know what to do. He had sunk into a chair and his head
fairly rung. It seemed to him incredible that the girl had disappeared a
second time. A queer sense of unreality made him feel faint.
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