elp from the passing stranger! I am Elizabeth Ransome, owner of the
house in which I have been imprisoned five years. Search for me in the
upper story. You will find me there with my blind daughter. He who
placed us here is below; beware his cunning."

CHAPTER IV

I LEARN HYPOCRISY

Even in that rush of confusing emotions I recognized one fact; that I
must not betray by look or word that I knew this dreadful secret.

So I went in, but went in slowly and with downcast eyes. The bead and
the paper I had dropped into my vinaigrette, which fortunately hung at
my side.

"Humphrey," I said, "when are we going to leave this house? I begin to
find it lonesome."

He was preparing to gather up his papers for his accustomed trip
down-town, but he stopped as I spoke, and looked at me curiously.

"You are pale," he remarked, "change and travel will benefit you.
Dearest, we will try to sail for Europe in a week."

CHAPTER V

THE STOLEN KEY

It became apparent even to my girlish mind, that, as the wife of the man
who had committed this great and inconceivable wrong, I was bound, not
only to make an immediate attempt to release the women he so
outrageously held imprisoned in their own house, but to release them so
that he should escape the opprobrium of his own act.

That I might have time to think, and that I might be saved, if but for
one day, contact with one it was almost my duty to hate, I came back to
him with the plea that I might spend the day with the Vandykes instead
of accompanying him down-town as usual. I think he was glad of the
freedom my absence offered him, for he gave me the permission I asked,
and in ten minutes I was in my old home. Mrs. Vandyke received me with
effusion. It was not the first time she had seen me since my marriage,
but it was the first time she had seen me alone.

"My dear!" she exclaimed, turning me about till my unwilling face met
the light, "is this the wild-wood lassie I gave into Mr. Allison's
keeping a week ago!"

"It is the house!" I excitedly gasped, "the empty, lonely, echoing
house! I am afraid in it, even with my husband. It gives me creepy
feelings, as if a murder had been committed in it."

She broke into a laugh; I hear the sound now, an honest, amused and
entirely reassuring laugh, that relieved me in one way and depressed me
in another.

I ventured on another attempt to clear up the mystery that was fast
stifling out my youth, love and hope. I prof