rozen land of tyranny!"

"Oh! oh! oh!" said Mademoiselle Marie. "How eloquent monsieur can be!
Quite an orator! One would say he, too, has known this land of orange
trees and flowers!"

"I?" Mr. Heatherbloom bit his lip.

But she only shook a finger. "Oh! oh!" Altogether like a different
person from his casual acquaintance of the park! He gazed at her
closer; how quickly the marks of trouble, anxiety, had faded from her
face; as if they had never existed.

"What do you mean?" he asked, looking into eyes now full of a new and
peculiar understanding.

"Nothing," she said and vanished.

He gazed where she had been; he could not account for a sudden strange
emotion, as if some one had trailed a shadow over him. A premonition of
something going to happen; that could not be foreseen, or averted!
Something worse than anything that had gone before! What nonsense! He
pressed his lips tightly and went about his duties like an automaton.

Eight days--seven days--six days more!--only six--

CHAPTER VIII

THE UNEXPECTED

The blow fell, a thunderbolt from the clear sky. It dazed certain people
at first; it was difficult to realize what had happened, or if anything
_had_ really happened. For might not what seemed a deep and dire mystery
turn out to be nothing so very mysterious after all? A message would
soon come; everything would then be "cleared up" and those most
concerned would laugh at their apprehensions. But the hours went by, and
the affair remained inexplicable; no word was heard concerning Miss
Dalrymple's whereabouts; she seemed to have disappeared as completely as
if she had vanished on the Persian magic carpet. What could it mean? The
circumstances briefly were:

Miss Dalrymple, four or five days before Mr. Heatherbloom's term of
service came to an end, had expressed a desire to revisit her old home
and friends in the West. One of a party made up mostly of other
Californians--now residents of New York city--the girl had failed to
appear on the private car at the appointed time, and the train had
pulled out, leaving her behind. At the first important stop a telegram
had been handed to a gentleman of the party from Miss Dalrymple; it
expressed her regret at having reached the station too late owing to
circumstances she would explain later, and announced her intention of
coming on, with her maid, in a few days. They were not to wait anywhere
for her but to go right along.

The party did; it was sorry