Roger dared not speak his sympathy. This was not the moment.
So he said, simply, "I'll find him, and when I find him," he went on,
"it may be best not to bring him back at once. I've had to deal with
such cases before. We will go into the country for a few days, and
come back when he is completely--himself."
"Oh, can you spare the time?"
"I haven't taken any vacation, and--so there are still thirty days to
my credit. And I need an outing."
He prepared at once to go, and when he had packed a little bag, he came
down into the garden. There was moonlight and the fragrance and the
splashing fountain. Roger was thrilled by the thought of his quest.
It was as if he had laid upon himself some vow which was sending him
forth for the sake of this sweet lady. As Mary came toward him, he
wished that he might ask for the rose she wore, as his reward. But he
must not ask. She gave him her friendship, her confidence, and these
were very precious things. He must never ask for more--and so he must
not ask for a rose.
And now he was standing just below her on the terrace steps, looking up
at her with his heart in his eyes.
"I'll find him," he said, "don't worry."
She reached out and touched his shoulder with her hand. "How good you
are," she said, wistfully, "to take all of this trouble for us. I feel
that I ought not to let you do it--and yet--we are so helpless, Aunt
Isabelle and I."
There was nothing of the boy about her now. She was all clinging
dependent woman. And the touch of her hand on his shoulder was the
sword of the queen conferring knighthood. What cared he now for a rose?
So he left her, standing there in the moonlight, and when he reached
the bottom of the hill, he turned and looked back, and she still stood
above him, and as she saw him turn, she waved her hand.
In days of old, knights fought with dragons and cut off their heads,
only to find that other heads had grown to replace those which had been
destroyed.
And it was such dragons of doubt and despair which Roger Poole fought
in the days after he had found Barry.
The boy had hidden himself in a small hotel in the down-town district
of Baltimore. Following one clue and then another, Roger had come upon
him. There had been no explanations. Barry had seemed to take his
rescue as a matter of course, and to be glad of some one into whose
ears he could pour the litany of his despair.