s had made of her carefully groomed face, a new terror growing in
her eyes:

"I've told James to answer all telephone calls and say that Betty is
doing as well as could be expected, but that the doctor says she must
have perfect quiet to save her from a nervous breakdown----" she
answered him coldly. "I'm not quite a fool if you do think so----"

"Well, that's all right for to-night, but what'll we say to-morrow if we
don't find her----"

"Oh! She'll come back," said the stepmother confidently. "She can't help
it. Why, where would she go? She hasn't a place on earth since she's
lost confidence in that cousin of her mother's because he didn't come to
her wedding. She hasn't an idea that he never got her note asking him to
give her away. Thank heaven I got hold of that before it reached the
postman! If that old granny had been here we should have had trouble
indeed. I had an experience with him once just before I married Betty's
father, and I never want to repeat it. But we must look out what gets in
the papers!"

"It's rather late for that, I suspect. The bloodhounds 'ill be around
before many minutes and you better think up what you want said. But I'm
not so sure she wouldn't go there, and we better tell the detectives
that. What's the old guy's address? I'll call him up long distance and
say she was on a motoring trip and intended to stop there if she had
time. I'll ask if she's reached there yet."

"That's a good idea, although I'm sure she was too hurt about it to go
to him. She cried all the afternoon. It's a wonder she didn't look
frightful! But that's Betty! Cry all day and come out looking like a
star without any paint either. It's a pity somebody that would have
appreciated it couldn't have had her complexion."

"That's you all over, Mother, talking about frivolous things when
everything's happening at once. You're the limit! I say, you'd better be
getting down to business! I've thought of another thing. How about that
old nurse, Candace? Betty used to be crazy about her? What became of
her?"

Mrs. Stanhope's face hardened, and anxiety grew in her eyes.

"She might have gone to her, although I don't believe she knows where
she is. I'm sure I don't. I sent her away just before we began to get
ready for the wedding. I didn't dare have her here. She knows too much
and takes too much upon herself. I wouldn't have kept her so long, only
she knew I took the trustee's letter, and she was very impudent about it