y were already receding into the mists of
twilight.

He went along down the road, his swinging step light as the shimmer of a
moonbeam across a spangled pool.

The Webster house was in darkness. Nevertheless this discovery did not
disconcert him, for frequently Lucy worked until dusk among her flowers,
or lingered on the porch in the peace of the evening stillness.

To-night, however, he failed to find her in either of her favorite haunts
and, guided by the wailing music of a harmonica, he came at last upon Tony
seated on an upturned barrel at the barn threshold, striving to banish his
loneliness by breathing into the serenity of the twilight the refrain of
"Home, Sweet Home."

"Hi, Tony!" called Martin. "Do you know where Miss Lucy is?"

"I don't, sir," replied the boy, rising. "She didn't 'xactly say where she
was goin'."

"I s'pose she's round the place somewhere."

"Land, no, sir! Didn't she tell you? Why, she went away on the train this
afternoon."

"On the train?" Martin repeated automatically.

"Yes, sir."

"When is she comin' back?"

"She ain't comin' back," announced the Portuguese. "She's goin' out West
or somewheres to live."

A quick shiver vibrated through Martin's body, arresting the beat of his
pulse. Scarcely knowing what he did, he caught the lad roughly by the
shoulder.

"When did she go?" he demanded. "What time? What did she say?"

Tony raised a frightened glance to his questioner's face.

"She went this afternoon," gasped he, "about five o'clock it was. She took
the Boston train. She said she guessed she'd go back out West 'cause she
didn't want to stay here any more. She was afraid of ghosts."

"Ghosts!"

Tony nodded.

"I'm to leave the key of the house at Mr. Benton's in the mornin' an' tell
him everythin's cleaned up an' in order. An' Miss Lucy said I was to stay
here an' go on with the work till you or somebody else told me to stop."

Without comment Martin listened. Slowly the truth made its impress on his
mind. Lucy had gone! Gone!

With the knowledge, all the latent affection he felt for her crystallized
into a mighty tide that rushed over and engulfed him in its current.
Hatred, revenge, pride were no more; only love persisted,--love the
all-powerful, the all-conquering, the all-transforming.

Lucy, dearer to him than his own soul, had gone. Either in anger, or
driven forth by maiden shyness, she had fled from him; and until she was
brought back and was safe withi