way as if she intended to
follow her. Had I not learned to distrust my own impression of people's
motives from their manners and conduct, I should have said that she was
waiting for me to precede her.

"Two shoes and not mates!" she finally exclaimed. "What does she mean?"

"Simply that another shoe has been drawn up from the river-bottom which
does not mate the one picked up near the bungalow. Both are for the left
foot."

"Ah!" gasped this sympathetic woman. "And what inference can we draw
from that?"

I should not have answered her; but the command in her eyes or the
thrilling effect of her manner compelled me, and I spoke the truth at
once, just as I might have done to Mrs. Ocumpaugh, or, better still, to
Mr. Ocumpaugh, if either had insisted.

"But one," said I. "There is a conspiracy on the part of one or more
persons to delude Mrs. Ocumpaugh into believing the child dead. They
blundered over it, but they came very near succeeding."

"Who blundered, and what is the meaning of the conspiracy you hint at?
Tell me. Tell me what such men as you think."

Her plastic features had again shown a change. She was all anxiety now;
cheeks burning, eyes blazing--a very beautiful woman.

"We think that the case looks serious. We think from the very mystery it
displays, that there is a keen intelligence back of this crime. I can
not go any further than that. The affair is as yet too obscure."

"You amaze me!" she faltered, making an effort to collect her thoughts.
"I have always thought, just as Mrs. Ocumpaugh has, that the child had
somehow found her way to the water and was drowned. But if all this is
true we shall have to face a worse evil. A conspiracy against such a
tender little being as that! A conspiracy, and for what? Not to extort
money, or why these blundering efforts to make the child appear dead?"

She was the same sympathetic woman, agitated by real feeling as before,
yet at this moment--I do not understand now just why--I became aware of
an inner movement of caution against too great a display of candor on my
own part.

"Madam, it is all a mystery at present. I am sure that the police will
tell you the same. But another day may bring developments."

"Let us hope so!" was her ardent reply, accompanied by a gesture, the
freedom of which suited her style and person as it would not have done
those of a less impressionable woman. And, seeing that I had no
intention of leaving the spot where I stood, she m