sterday saw the
end of those ten days, and where is she now? Only that man knows. He is
one man in a thousand. Can not you find him?"

She turned; a train was coming, a train which it was very evident she
felt it her duty to take. I had no right to detain her, but I found time
for a question or two.

"And you told Mrs. Ocumpaugh this?"

"The moment we arrived home."

"And she? What did she think of it?"

"Mrs. Ocumpaugh is not a talkative woman. She grew very white and
clasped the child passionately in her arms. But the next minute she had
to all appearance dismissed the whole occurrence from her thoughts.
'Some socialistic fanatic,' she called him and merely advised me to stop
driving with Gwendolen for the present."

"Didn't you recall the matter to her when you found the child missing?"

"Yes; but then she appeared to regard it in a superstitious way only. It
was a warning of death, she said, and the man an irresponsible
clairvoyant. When I tried to urge my own idea upon her and describe how
I thought he might have obtained access to the bungalow and carried her
off, while still asleep, to some vehicle awaiting them in Mrs. Carew's
grounds, she only rebuked me for my folly and bade me keep still about
the whole occurrence, saying that I should only be getting some poor
half-demented old wretch into trouble for something for which he was not
in the least responsible."

"A very considerate woman," I remarked; to which Miss Graham made reply
as the train came storming up:

"Nobody knows how considerate, even if she has dismissed me rather
suddenly from her service. Don't let that wretch"--again she used the
word--"deceive her or you into thinking that the little one perished in
the water. Gwendolen is alive, I say. Find him and you will find her. I
saw his resolution in his eye."

Here she made a rush for the cars, and I had time only to get her future
address before the train started and all further opportunity of
conversation between us was over for that day.

I remained behind because I was by no means through with my
investigations. What she had told me only convinced me of the necessity
I had already recognized of making myself master of all that could be
learned at Homewood before undertaking the very serious business of
locating the child or even the aged man just described to me, and who I
was now sure had been the chief, if not the sole, instrument in her
abduction.

III

A CHARMING WOMA