, for I expected to find the child somewhere about
the grounds; but _now_, when I come to think, it means everything, for a
child's cry mingled with it (or I imagined that it did) and that
child--"

"But," I forcibly interposed, "the police should know this."

"They do; and so does Mrs. Ocumpaugh; but she has only the one idea, and
nothing can move her."

I remembered the wagon with the crying child inside which had been seen
on the roads the previous evening, and my heart fell a little in spite
of myself.

"Couldn't Mrs. Carew tell us something about this?" I asked, with a
gesture toward the house we were now passing.

"No. Mrs. Carew went to New York that morning and had only just returned
when we missed Gwendolen. She had been for her little nephew, who has
lately been made an orphan, and she was too busy making him feel at home
to notice if a carriage had passed through her grounds."

"Her servants then?"

"She had none. All had been sent away. The house was quite empty."

I thought this rather odd, but having at this moment reached the long
flight of steps leading down the embankment, I made no reply till we
reached the foot. Then I observed:

"I thought Mrs. Carew was very intimate with Mrs. Ocumpaugh."

"She is; they are more like sisters than mere friends."

"Yet she goes to New York the very day her friend gives a musicale."

"Oh, she had good reasons for that. Mrs. Carew is planning to sail this
week for Europe, and this was her only opportunity for getting her
little nephew, who is to go with her. But I don't know as she will sail,
now. She is wild with grief over Gwendolen's loss, and will not feel
like leaving Mrs. Ocumpaugh till she knows whether we shall ever see the
dear child again. But, I shall miss my train."

Here her step visibly hastened.

As it was really very nearly due, I had not the heart to detain her. But
as I followed in her wake I noticed that for all her hurry a curious
hesitancy crept into her step at times, and I should not have been
surprised at any moment to see her stop and confront me on one of the
two remaining long flights of steps leading down the steep hillside.

But we both reached the base without her having yielded to this impulse,
and presently we found ourselves in full view of the river and the small
flag-station located but a few rods away toward the left. As we turned
toward the latter, we both cast an involuntary look back at the
Ocumpaugh dock, where a