e had no
connection with Tracy Park; she was going somewhere else--to
Collingwood, perhaps--when, overcome by the storm and the cold, she had
sought shelter for the night in this wretched place.

'I suppose the proper thing to do is to leave her here till the coroner
can see her,' he said to John; 'but no train can get through from
Springfield to-day, I am sure, and I shall have her taken to the park.
Bring me the blankets from the sleigh.'

He was very collected now, for a great load was lifted from his mind.

'Had she nothing with her? nothing to cover her?' he asked, as they
proceeded to wrap her in the warm blankets, which, had they sooner come,
would have saved her life.

Harold told him again of the carpet-bag and the cloak and the shawl,
which had covered the child, and added, 'That's all; there don't seem to
be anything else. Oh, what's this?' and stooping down, he picked up some
hard substance which he had kicked against the table.

It proved to be one of those olive wood candle sticks, so convenient in
travelling, as when not in use, they can be made into a small round box
or ball, and take but little room. It contained but the remains of a wax
candle, which had burned down into the socket and then gone out. Near
by, upon the floor, was a tiny box of matches, with two or three charred
ones among them.

'The poor woman must have had a light for at least a portion of the
time,' Frank said, as he picked up the box.

'She had, I know she had,' Harold cried, excitedly; 'for I saw it and
told grandma so. It was like she had opened the door and let out a big
blaze, and then everything was dark, as if the door was shut or the wind
had blown the candle out.'

'What time was that, do you think?' Frank asked.

'It must have been about eleven,' Harold replied, 'for I remember
hearing the clock strike and grandma's saying I must go to bed, it was
so late. I was up with her because her foot was so bad, and I warmed the
poultices.'

Frank groaned aloud, unmindful of the boy looking so curiously at him,
for that was the time when he had heard the sound like a human voice is
distress. He had thought it a fancy then communicated to him by his
brother's nervousness, but now he was certain it must have been the
stranger calling through the storm, in the vain hope that somebody would
hear and come. Somebody had heard, but no one had come; and so in the
cold and the darkness, with the snow sifting through every crevice