Gault snatched at this meager information, and lost no time in seeking out the widow in her own home. She was a good-natured and loquacious Irish-American,--Mrs. Cassidy by name,--and was full of terror at the thought that detectives had been occupied in discovering her place of abode. Her fears, however, were soon allayed, and she became exceedingly discursive. But when it came to information of Viola, she could tell no more than the others.
Before Miss Reed had left the city she had given the package to the boy, with the instructions that he should not deliver it till the day set by her, some time after her departure. Of her own volition Mrs. Cassidy stated that she thought Miss Reed did not want any one to know where she went. Mrs. Cassidy had conferred with others of her kind in the locality, and the silent and hasty departure of the Reeds had been matter of comment. The shrewd Irishwoman saw that there was a mysterious romance here, and her glance dwelt with compassionate curiosity upon the gentleman who was sufficiently interested in the pretty girl they had all known by sight to employ detectives to hunt for her.
The finding of the boy and the interview with Mrs. Cassidy broke down the last of Gault's hopes. He now knew that Viola had intentionally fled from him. At first, when no word came from her, and Mrs. Robson's description of her as ill was fresh in his mind, he had a terrible fear that she might have died. But a later judgment convinced him that had this been the case he would have heard from the colonel. Viola was living--hiding somewhere from him, restraining her father from communicating with him, which, Gault knew, would be the old man's wish and intention.
And now, with the blankness of her absence deadening his heart, for the first time he began to understand what she must have thought and felt--began to see the situation with her eyes. He thought of her, loving and believing in him as he knew she had always done, suddenly waking to the knowledge that he had suspected her. He saw her living over again those conversations in which he had half revealed his groundless doubts, had tried to find confirmation of them in the halting admissions of her puzzled ignorance. And with her comprehension of the light in which he had been regarding her came that _coup de grâce_ of all doubts in his favor--the giving of the money.