berately.

David bowed his head. Then he threw it back again, suddenly.

"If that is true," he said, "then I am largely responsible for her
going."

"It is I who am responsible," Jimmie groaned aloud. "I asked her to
marry me and she refused me."

"I asked her to marry me and didn't give her the chance to refuse,"
David said; "it is that she is running away from."

"It was Peter's engagement that was the last straw," Margaret said.
"The poor baby withered and shrank like a flower in the blast when I
told her that."

"The damned hound--" Jimmie said feelingly and without apology. "Who's
he engaged to anyway?"

"Eleanor says it's Beulah, and the more I think of it the more I think
that she's probably right."

"That would be a nice mess, wouldn't it?" Gertrude suggested.
"Remember how frank we were with her about his probable lack of
judgment, Margaret? I don't covet the sweet job of breaking it to
either one of them."

Nevertheless she assisted Margaret to break it to them both late that
same afternoon at Beulah's apartment.

"I'll find her," Peter said briefly. And in response to the halting
explanation of her disappearance that Margaret and Gertrude had done
their best to try to make plausible, despite its elliptical nature, he
only said, "I don't see that it makes any difference why she's gone.
She's gone, that's the thing that's important. No matter how hard we
try we can't really figure out her reason till we find her."

"Are you sure it's going to be so easy?" Gertrude asked. "I
mean--finding her. She's a pretty determined little person when she
makes up her mind. Eleanor's threats are to be taken seriously. She
always makes good on them."

"I'll find her if she's anywhere in the world," Peter said. "I'll find
her and bring her back."

Margaret put out her hand to him.

"I believe that you will," she said. "Find out the reason that she
went away, too, Peter."

Beulah pulled Gertrude aside.

"It wasn't Peter, was it?" she asked piteously. "She had some one else
on her mind, hadn't she?"

"She had something else on her mind," Gertrude answered gravely, "but
she had Peter on her mind, too."

"She didn't--she couldn't have known about us--Peter and me. We--we
haven't told any one."

"She guessed it, Beulah. She couldn't bear it. Nobody's to blame. It's
just one of God's most satirical mix-ups."

"I was to blame," Beulah said slowly. "I don't believe in shifting
responsibility. I got her here