CHAPTER XXIII

SUSPENSE AND THE REWARD

All night long diligent search was made for Harriet Hamlin, but no word was heard of her.  The “Automobile Girls” telephoned her dearest friends.  Mr. Hamlin and Mr. Stuart tramped from one hotel to the other.  None of the Hamlin household closed their eyes that night.

“It has been my fault, Robert,” Mr. Hamlin admitted, as he and his brother-in-law returned home in the gray dawn of the morning, hoping vainly to hear that Harriet had returned.  “My child has gotten into debt and she has been afraid to confess her mistake to me.  Her little friend, Mollie, told me the story.  Mollie believes that Mrs. Wilson and Peter Dillon tempted Harriet by offering to lend her money.  And so she agreed to aid them in what she thought was their ‘joke.’  I have seen, lately, that Harriet has been so worried she hardly knew what she was doing.  Yet, when my poor child tried to confess her fault to me, I would not let her go on.  My harshness and lack of sympathy have driven her to—­I know not what.  Oh, Robert, what shall I do?  She is the one joy of my life!”

Mr. Stuart did not try to deny Mr. Hamlin’s judgment of himself.  He knew Mr. Hamlin had been too severe with his daughter.  If only Harriet could be found she and her father would be closer friends after this experience.  Mr. Stuart realized fully what danger Harriet was in with her unusual beauty, with no mother and with a father who did not understand her.

“Harriet has done very wrong,” Mr. Hamlin added slowly.  It was hard, indeed, for a man of his nature to forgive.  “But I shall not reproach her when she comes back to me,” he said quickly.  The fear that Harriet might never return to him at all struck a sudden chill to his soul.

“The child has done wrong, William, I admit it,” returned good-natured Mr. Stuart.  “She has been headstrong and foolish.  But we have done worse things in our day, remember.”

“I will remember,” Mr. Hamlin answered drearily, as he shut himself up in his room.

Mr. Hamlin would not come down to breakfast.  There was still no news of Harriet.  While dear, comfortable Aunt Sallie and the “Automobile Girls” were seated around the table, making a pretense of eating, there came a ring at the front door bell.

Ruth jumped up and ran out into the hall.  Then followed several moments of awful suspense.  Ruth came back slowly, not with Harriet, but with a note in her hand.  She opened it with shaking fingers, for she recognized Harriet’s handwriting in the address.

The note read:  “Dearest Ruth, I shall never come home again.  I have disgraced my father and myself.  I would not listen to you and Bab, and now I know the worst.  Mrs. Wilson and Peter Dillon were villains and I was only a foolish dupe.  I spent the night in a boarding house with an old friend of my mother’s.”  Ruth stopped reading.  Her voice sank so low it was almost impossible to hear her.  She had not noticed that her uncle was standing just outside the door, listening, with white lips.