"Good!" said Graham. "Now call up long distance and get me Police Headquarters in Washington. No! Use the phone in father's office please, I'll have to use this while you're getting them."
As soon as she had left the room he called up the shore again and was fortunate in getting Carol almost immediately, the poor child being close at hand all in a tremble, with Elizabeth in no less a state of nervousness, brave and white, waiting for orders.
"Can you give me an exact description of your sister's dress, and everything that she had with her when she started this morning?" asked Graham, prepared with pen and paper to write it down.
Carol summoned her wits and described Shirley's simple outfit exactly, even down to the little black pumps on her feet, and went mentally through the small hand-bag she had carried.
"Oh, yes!" she added, "and she had a book to read! One she found here in the cottage. It had a red cover and was called, "From the Car Behind."
Graham wrote them all down carefully, asked a few more details of Shirley's plans, and bade Carol again to be brave and go home with a message to George to be at the phone from half-past eight to ten.
He was all ready to go to his train when the Washington call came in, and as he hurried to his father's office to answer it he found his heart crying out to an Unseen Power to help in this trying hour and protect the sweet girl in awful peril.
"Oh, God, I love her!" he found his heart saying over and over again, as if it had started out to be an individual by itself without his will or volition.
There was no comfort from Washington Police Headquarters. Nothing more had been discovered save another crumpled postal lying along the roadside. They received with alacrity, however, Mr. Barnard's Washington hotel address, and the description of the young woman and her belongings. When Graham had finished the hasty conversation he had to fly to make his train, and when at last he lay back in his seat in the parlor car and let the waves of his anxiety and trouble roll over him he was almost overwhelmed. He had led a comparatively tranquil life for a young man who had never tried to steer clear of trouble, and this was the first great calamity that had ever come his way. Calamity? No, he would not own yet that it was a calamity. He was hurrying to her! He would find her! He would not allow himself to think that anything had befallen her. But wherever she was, if she was still alive, no matter how great her peril, he was sure she was praying now, and he would pray too! Yes, pray as she had taught him. Oh, God! If he only knew how to pray better! What was it she had said so often? "Whatsoever ye ask in my name"--yes, that was it--"I will do it." What was that talismanic Name? Ah! Christ! "Oh, God, in the name of Christ--" But when he came to the thought of her she was too exquisite and dear to be put into words, so his petition went up in spirit form, unframed by words to weight it down, wafted up by the pain of a soul in torture.