Mr. Gryce's eyes. "I was
attracted by the beauty of this picture visible through the half open
door and stepped in to favor myself with a nearer view. It is very
lovely. A sister of Mr. Blake?"

"No, his cousin;" and she closed the door after us with an emphasis that
proclaimed she was anything but pleased.

It was my last effort to obtain information on my own account. In a few
moments later Mr. Gryce appeared from below, and a conversation ensued
with Mrs. Daniels that absorbed my whole attention.

"You are very anxious, my man here tells me, that this girl should be
found?" remarked Mr. Gryce; "so much so that you are willing to defray
all the expenses of a search?"

She bowed. "As far as I am able sir; I have a few hundreds in the
bank, you are welcome to them. I would not keep a dollar back if I
had thousands, but I am poor, and can only promise you what I myself
possess; though--" and her cheeks grew flushed and hot with an unnatural
agitation--"I believe that thousands would not be lacking if they were
found necessary. I--I could almost swear you shall have anything in
reason which you require; only the girl must be found and soon."

"Have you thought," proceeded Mr. Gryce, utterly ignoring the wildness
of these statements, "that the girl may come back herself if let alone?"

"She will come back if she can," quoth Mrs. Daniels.

"Did she seem so well satisfied with her home as to warrant you in
saying that?"

"She liked her home, but she loved me," returned the woman steadily.
"She loved me so well she would never have gone as she did without being
forced. Yes," said she, "though she made no outcry and stopped to put
on her bonnet and shawl. She was not a girl to make a fuss. If they had
killed her outright, she would never have uttered a cry."

"Why do you say they?"

"Because I am confident I heard more than one man's voice in her room."

"Humph! Would you know those voices if you heard them again?"

"No."

There was a surprise in this last negative which Mr. Gryce evidently
noticed.

"I ask," said he, "because I have been told that Mr. Blake lately kept a
body servant who has been seen to look at this girl more than once, when
she has passed him on the stairs."

Mrs. Daniels' face turned scarlet with rage and she hastily rose from
the chair. "I don't believe it," said she; "Henry was a man who knew his
place, and--I won't hear such things," she suddenly exclaimed; "Emily
was--was a lady, an