sound of an auto upon
the road. It drew up and stopped right in front of the gate. A man at
once alighted and walked rapidly toward the house. Mrs. Hampton rose
and met him just as he stepped upon the verandah. The visitor was a
middle-aged man, of overbearing manner. He had not the courtesy to
remove his hat in the presence of the woman, nor to take the big cigar
he was smoking from his mouth. In an instant the thought flashed into
Mrs. Hampton's mind that this was the man who had come to take away her
daughter. She had been dreading his appearance, and now he was before
her.

"I am Henry Randall," the man announced, "and I am looking for my
daughter. Is she here?"

"Your daughter!" Mrs. Hampton replied. "Why are you searching for her
here? Did she not drown herself?"

A heartless laugh broke from the man's lips, as he took the cigar from
his mouth, and flicked off the ashes. He looked piercingly at the
woman as if expecting to see her quail. But Mrs. Hampton's eyes never
flinched for an instant. She was angry at the man's manner of
approach, and when a quiet woman is aroused there is need for caution.

"Why don't you answer my question?" the man asked. "I want to know if
my daughter is here? She didn't drown herself, though she deserves to
be drowned for the way she has acted."

"No, your daughter is not here," Mrs. Hampton quietly replied.

"Not here!" Randall plainly showed his surprise. "Why, I was told that
she came to your house."

"Then you were wrongly informed. Your daughter has never been inside
my house."

"And you have not seen her?"

"No, I have never met her. You will have to search elsewhere."

"That is strange, madame, very strange. Didn't your son bring a girl
here who was injured at the stone quarry?"

"That is quite true, sir. My daughter received a slight injury at the
quarry, and it was she my son brought home."

The man frowned and bit savagely at his cigar.

"Confound it all!" he growled. "What am I to do?"

"Why not go to the quarry," Mrs. Hampton suggested. "You may learn
something there."

"That is the only thing I can do, I suppose," and the man sighed.
"But, by the way, where is your son now? And your daughter, too, for
that matter?"

"They went down the road but a short time ago. Didn't you meet them?
They were in a car."

"We met several cars, but I didn't see anything of your son. I know
him quite well, for let me tell you, madame, he and my