complexities of modern life for which she had been so ill
prepared.

"I do hope you will be able to find my daughter," she began,
controlling her voice with an effort. "Mr. Carton has been so
kind, more than kind, I am sure, in getting your aid. The police
seem to be able to do nothing. They make out reports, put me off,
tell me they are making progress--but they don't find Betty."

There was a tragic pathos in the way she said it.

"Betty was such a good girl, too," she went on, her emotions
rising. "Oh, I was so proud of her when she got her position down
in Wall Street, with the broker, Mr. Langhorne."

"Tell Mr. Kennedy just what you told me of her disappearance," put
in Carton.

Again Mrs. Blackwell controlled her feelings. "I don't know much
about it," she faltered, "but last Saturday, when she left the
office early, she said she was going to do some shopping on Fifth
Avenue. I know she went there, did shop a bit, then walked on the
Avenue several blocks. But after that there is no trace of her."

"You have heard nothing, have no idea where she might have gone--
even for a time?" queried Kennedy.

He asked it with a keen look at the face of Mrs. Blackwell. I
recalled one case where a girl had disappeared in which Kennedy
had always asserted that if the family had been perfectly frank at