her look, at her word, the thread which I had seized with such
avidity seemed to slip from my fingers. Had little Miss Graham's theory
no better foundation than this? and were the wheels she heard only those
of Mrs. Carew's departing carriage? I resolved to press the matter even
if I ran the risk of displeasing her.

"Mrs. Carew--for it must be Mrs. Carew I am addressing--did your little
nephew cry when you first brought him to the house?"

"I think he did," she admitted slowly; "I think he did."

I must have given evidence of the sudden discouragement this brought me,
for her lips parted and her whole frame trembled with sudden
earnestness.

"Did you think--did any one think--that those cries came from Gwendolen?
That she was carried out through my grounds? Could any one have thought
that?"

"I have been told that the nursery-governess did."

"Little Miss Graham? Poor girl! she is but defending herself from
despair. She is ready to believe everything but that the child is dead."

Was it so? Was I following the false light of a will-o'-the-wisp? No,
no; the strange coincidence of the threat made on the bridge with the
disappearance of the child on the day named, was at least real. The
thread had not altogether escaped from my hands. It was less tangible,
but it was still there.

"You may be right," I acquiesced, for I saw that her theories were
entirely opposed to those of Miss Graham. "But we must try everything,
_everything_."

I was about to ask whether she had ever seen in the adjoining grounds,
or on the roads about, an old man with long hair and a remarkable scar
running down between his eyebrows, when a young girl in the cap and
apron of a maid-servant came running through the shrubbery from the
Ocumpaugh house, and, seeing Mrs. Carew, panted out:

"Oh, do come over to the house, Mrs. Carew. Mrs. Ocumpaugh has been told
that the two shoes which have been found, one on the bank and the other
in the river, are not mates, and it has quite distracted her. She has
gone to her room and will let no one else in. We can hear her moaning
and crying, but we can do nothing. Perhaps she will see you. She called
for you, I know, before she shut her door."

"I will go." Mrs. Carew had turned quite pale, and from standing upright
in the road, had moved so as to gain support from one of the hedges.

I expected to see her turn and go as soon as her trembling fit was over,
but she did not, though she waved the girl a