"And what, Sally?" he asked her, when she again hesitated.
"Nothing."
"But you were about to make a suggestion. What was it?"
"If it was anything at all, it was that you chase yourself out there among the trees, find Beatrice and Nesbit Farnum, and take her away from him," exclaimed this impetuous young woman, who found delight in expressing herself in the slang of the day. Duncan shrugged his shoulders, and uttered the one word: "Why?"
But Sally did not vouchsafe any reply at all, to the question. She tossed her head, and darted along the wide hall toward a rear door.
Duncan gazed after her for a moment, and then, with another shrug of his shoulders, he passed on out of the house, and made his way swiftly toward the stables and the garage, for he was determined to get out his car and to return to the city, forthwith.
His surprise was great, when, on arriving at the door of the garage, he found that Sally had preceded him, and, as he drew near, she turned a white, scared face toward him, exclaiming: "Oh, Roderick! What do you think? Patricia has gone."
"Gone!" he echoed. "Gone where? Gone, when? What do you mean, Sally?"
"She has gone. She has taken one of Jack's cars, and gone home."
"Alone?"
"No. She took Patrick with her, to drive the car. They left here half an hour ago, I am told. Why do you suppose she did such a thing, without consulting me, Roderick? Why? Why?"
"Why?" he echoed her question a second time. Then, he laughed, and it was not a pleasant laugh to hear. All the bitterness of those moments under the vine on the veranda was voiced in that laugh. "It isn't a difficult question to answer, Sally. She has followed Morton--that is why;" and, while Mrs. Gardner stared at him, uncomprehendingly, he turned to one of the stablemen who was near, and who had been Sally's informant about the movements of Patricia, and called out: "Tell my man to fetch my car to me, here. I shall go, at once, Sally." His car was already moving toward him, and, as it stopped and he put one foot upon the step, Sally replied: "I'll say that you and Patricia went away together. It will sound better."
"Pardon me, Sally, but you will say no such thing--with my permission. Go ahead, Thompson." He sprang into the car, and it sped away with him, leaving Sally staring after him, wide-eyed with the amazement she felt. Already, she realized that her house-party, from which she had expected such wholesome results, had proven disastrous all around. Her husband's prophecy concerning it had been correct. But she did not know, and could not know as yet, just how disastrous it had been, for there had been no prophet to foretell the catastrophe at the stone quarry, toward which Patricia Langdon had started, half an hour earlier, in one of Jack Gardner's cars, guided by one of Jack's most trusted servants; and, oddly enough, by one who had formerly been in the employ of Stephen Langdon, and who, as a servant, had fallen under the spell of the daughter of the house to such an extent that he had never ceased to quote her as the criterion of all things in the way of excellence to be attained by an employer. And toward this quarry Duncan was now hastening at the full speed of his big Packard-sixty, with the trusted Thompson at the wheel; and toward it, as the chief actor, Richard Morton had started away from Cedarcrest with a broken heart, and with a brain crazed by the calamities that had rushed so swiftly upon him.