were, did carry her
off, it was an agony to her, an awful, awful thing that will kill her if
it has not done so already. You don't know what you are talking about,
you never saw her--"

"Was she pretty," I asked, hurrying the woman along, for more than one
passer-by had turned their heads to look at us. The question seemed in
some way to give her a shock.

"Ah, I don't know," she muttered; "some might not think so, I always
did; it depended upon the way you looked at her."

For the first time I felt a thrill of anticipation shoot through my
veins. Why, I could not say. Her tone was peculiar, and she spoke in a
sort of brooding way as though she were weighing something in her own
mind; but then her manner had been peculiar throughout. Whatever it was
that aroused my suspicion, I determined henceforth to keep a very sharp
eye upon her ladyship. Levelling a straight glance at her face, I asked
her how it was that she came to be the one to inform the authorities of
the girl's disappearance.

"Doesn't Mr. Blake know anything about it?"

The faintest shadow of a change came into her manner. "Yes," said she,
"I told him at breakfast time; but Mr. Blake doesn't take much interest
in his servants; he leaves all such matters to me."

"Then he does not know you have come for the police?"

"No, sir, and O, if you would be so good as to keep it from him. It is
not necessary he should know. I shall let you in the back way. Mr. Blake
is a man who never meddles with anything, and--"

"What did Mr. Blake say this morning when you told him that this
girl--By the way, what is her name?"

"Emily."

"That this girl, Emily, had disappeared during the night?"

"Not much of anything, sir. He was sitting at the breakfast table
reading his paper, he merely looked up, frowned a little in an
absent-minded way, and told me I must manage the servants' affairs
without troubling him."

"And you let it drop?"

"Yes sir; Mr. Blake is not a man to speak twice to."

I could easily believe that from what I had seen of him in public, for
though by no means a harsh looking man, he had a reserved air which if
maintained in private must have made him very difficult of approach.

We were now within a half block or so of the old-fashioned mansion
regarded by this scion of New York's aristocracy as one of the most
desirable residences in the city; so motioning to the man who had
accompanied me to take his stand in a doorway near by and watch fo