of what had been one long and undivided room.

It was a strange act enough; but when, a few days later, it was followed
by one equally mysterious, and they saw the encircling wall which had
been so carefully raised by Judge Ocumpaugh ruthlessly pulled down, and
every sign of its former presence there destroyed, wonder filled the
highway and the curiosity of neighbors and friends passed all bounds.

But no explanations were volunteered then or ever. People might query
and peer, but they learned nothing. What was left open to view told no
tales beyond the old one, and as for the single window which was the
sole opening into the shut-off space, it was then, as now, so completely
blocked up by a network of closely impacted vines, that it offered
little more encouragement than the wall itself to the eyes of such
curiosity-mongers as crept in by way of the hedge-rows to steal a look
at the hut, and if possible gain a glimpse of an interior which had
suddenly acquired, by the very means taken to shut it off from every
human eye, a new importance pointing very decidedly toward the tragic.

But soon even this semblance of interest died out or was confined to
strange tales whispered under breath on weird nights at neighboring
firesides, and the old neglect prevailed once more. The whole place--new
brick and old stone--seemed doomed to a common fate under the hand of
time, when the present Philo Ocumpaugh, succeeding to the property,
brought new wealth and business enterprise into the family, and the old
house on the hill was replaced by the marble turrets of Homewood, and
this hut--or rather the portion open to improvement--was restored to
some sort of comfort, and rechristened the bungalow.

Was fate to be appeased by this effort at forgetfulness? No. In
emulation of the long abandoned portion so hopelessly cut off by that
dividing wall, this brightly-furnished adjunct to the great house had
linked itself in the minds of men to a new mystery--the mystery which I
had come there to solve, if wit and patience could do it, aided by my
supposedly unshared knowledge of a fact connecting me with this family's
history in a way it little dreamed of.

Naturally, my first look was at the building itself. I have described
its location and the room from which the child was lost. What I wanted
to see now, after studying those chalk-marks, was whether that partition
which had been put in, was as impassable as was supposed.

The policeman