Richard did not know for certain that anything had happened.

"Ethie was most probably with Mrs.
Amsden.

She would be home to-morrow," and Andy felt how his brother leaned against him and his hand pressed upon his shoulders as he went to the stove, and crouched down before it just as he had done in Camden.
The candle was lighted, and its dim light fell upon that strange group gathered there at midnight, and looking into each other's faces with a wistful questioning as to what it all portended.
"It is very cold; make more fire," Richard said, shivering, as the sleet came driving against the window; and in an instant all the morning kindlings were thrust into the stove, which roared and crackled, and hissed, and diffused a sense of warmth and comfort through the shadowy room.
"What is it, Richard?
What makes you so white and queer ?" his mother asked, trying to pull on her stockings, and in her trepidation jamming her toes into the heel, and drawing her shoe over the bungle thus made at the bottom of her foot.
"Ethie was not there, and has not been since the night I left.

She sold her piano, and took the money, and her trunk, and her clothes, and went to visit Mrs.Amsden." This was Richard's explanation, which Andy thought a mighty funny reason for his brother's coming at midnight, and frightening them so terribly.
But his mother saw things differently.

She knew there was something underlying all this--something which would require all her skill and energy to meet--and her face was almost as white as Richard's as she asked, "Why do you think she has gone to Mrs.Amsden's ?" "You told me so, didn't you ?" and Richard looked up at her in a bewildered, helpless way, which showed that all he knew upon the Amsden question was what she had said herself, and that was hardly enough to warrant a conclusion of any kind.
"Was there any reason why Ethelyn should go away ?" she asked next, and Richard's head dropped, and his eyes were cast down in shame, as he replied: "Yes; we--quar--.