She sank to a chair.  Her tears were falling as she said again that everything was a great lark.  He paid no attention to her but went to the telephone.

But the tears were interrupted.  “Miss Kate,” said Nora, “can you come and look at the table a minute?  They want to know—­”

She dried her eyes as best she could and went and looked at the table.

She kept on looking at things—­doing things—­until she heard the bell.

“If that’s some one for me, Nora,” she said, “show him in here, and don’t interrupt me while he’s here.”  She passed into a small room they used as a den.

He came to her there.  And when she saw that it was indeed he she broke down.

“Something is the matter?” he asked gently.  “You wanted me?  You sent for me?”

She raised her head.  “Yes.  I sent for you.  I need you.”

It was evident she needed some one.  He would scarcely have known her for Katie—­so white, so shaken.  “I’m glad you sent for me,” he said simply.  “Now won’t you tell me what I can do?”

“She’s gone,” whispered Katie.

“Where?”

“I don’t know—­I don’t know where.  Away.  On a train.  Some train.  Any train.  Somewhere.  I don’t know where.  I thought—­oh you’ll find her for me—­won’t you?  You will find her—­won’t you?”

She had stretched out her hands, and he took them, holding them strongly in both of his.  “Don’t you want to tell me what you know?  I can’t help you unless you tell me.”

Briefly she told him—­wrenched the heart out of it in a few words.  “You see, I failed,” she concluded, looking up at him with swimming eyes.  “The very first thing—­the very first test—­I failed.  I wanted to do so much—­thought I understood so well—­oh I was so proud of the way I understood!  And then just the minute it came up against my life—­”

Her head went down to her hands, and because he was holding them it was upon his hands rather than hers it rested, Katie’s head with its gold brown hair all disorderly.

“Don’t,” he whispered, as she seemed breaking her heart with it.  “Why don’t you know all the world’s like that?  Don’t you know we all can be fine and free until it comes up against our lives?”

“I was so hard!” she sobbed.

“Yes—­I know.  We are hard—­when it’s our lives are touched.  Don’t cry, Katie.”  He spoke her name timidly and lingeringly.  “Isn’t that what life is?  Just one long thing of trying and failing?  But going on trying again!  That’s what you’ll do.”

“If you can find her for me!  But I never can hold up my head again—­never believe in myself—­never do anything—­why I never can laugh again—­not really laugh—­if you don’t find her for me.”

A curious look passed over his face with those last words.  “Well if that’s the case,” he said, with a strange little laugh of his own, “I’ve got to find her.”

They talked of things.  He would go to the station.  He would do what he could.  If he thought anything to be gained by it he would go on to Chicago.  He had to go in a few days anyhow, he explained, to see about some work, and if it didn’t seem a mere wild goose chase he would go that night.