question of pay could sting her from her numbness. Once there had
been a period, years ago, before Carroll's advent, of no pay.

"Oh yes," replied the brother. "He pays me. He has never been more
than a week behind. Captain Carroll seems like a very smart man. I
wonder where he lives. I don't believe anybody in the office knows.
He went away very early this afternoon. I don't know whether he lives
in the City or in the country. I thought maybe if he did live in the
country he wanted to get home and go driving or something."

It had been as the book-keeper surmised. Carroll had gone early to
his home in the country with the idea of a drive. But when he reached
home he found a state of affairs which precluded the drive. It seemed
that young Eddy Carroll was given to romancing in more respects than
one, and had not told the truth to Anderson when he had been asked if
his family would feel anxious at his non-return to dinner. Eddy knew
quite well that they would be anxious. In spite of a certain
temperamental aversion to worry, the boy's mother and sisters were
wont to become quite actively agitated if he failed to appear at
expected times and seasons. Eddy Carroll, in the course of a short
life, had contrived to find the hard side of many little
difficulties. He had gotten into divers forms of mischief; he had met
with many accidents. He had been almost drowned; he had broken an
arm; he had been hit in the forehead by a stone thrown by another boy.

When Arthur Carroll reached home that afternoon he found his wife in
hysterical tears, his sister trying to comfort her, and the two
daughters and the maid were scouring the town in search of the boy.
School was out, and he had still not come home. Carroll heard the
news before he reached home, from the coachman who met him at the