but wait at the garage until ten.
Now go quickly, please."

Without a backward glance, she mounted the path and inserted a key in the
door. All was silence and gloom within, but she fumbled her way to a
mantel in the small front room and found a box of matches. Lighting them
one after the other as they burned out, she made her way from room to
room on each of the two floors. They were bare of furniture, but the
debris of a hasty exodus was visible everywhere, and half the windows
were unfastened.

Willa wasted no time in looking about, but made her way quickly to the
heat register let into the floor of each room, and opened them wide.
Then she fled down the creaking stairs to the cellar, heedless of the
mice which scurried in droves before her, and opened the door of the
cold, empty furnace.

The chill dampness of the low, cramped vault no less than the animate
darkness made her shiver, but she resolutely crawled into the furnace and
pulled the door close behind her. She was scarcely settled in her place
when footsteps sounded on the porch above and an indistinguishable murmur
of male voices.

Presently the footsteps retreated, there came the rasp of an opening
window and then the tramp of feet within the house. There were two
distinct treads; one light and springy as a cat's, the other dragging
heavily and in apparent reluctance from room to room in the wake of the
first.

The voices reached her, now raised as the intruders called to each other,
now lowered in an earnest monotone, but to Willa's disappointment the
registers did not carry the sound to her as she had hoped and the tones
alone reached her ear in a confused rumble.

It was evident that a complete search of the house was in progress, but
at last the two men came to a halt beside the register in the room
directly above that part of the cellar where the girl crouched and the
words floated down to her, sharp and distinct in the silence.

"They've flown the coop, all right, whoever they were." It was Vernon's
voice. "I don't see why Willa came up here now, though, if she knew they
had gone. Where do you suppose she is?"

"She may not have known." Starr Wiley replied thoughtfully. "Finding
the place deserted and hearing us on the porch in all probability, she
may have slipped out the back door and taken the subway down-town.
Remember that burnt match I found in the hall was still warm. I wonder
if it's worth while to have a look in the cell