lvin Van de Lear, with a look of the greatest
pain, "Andrew Zane has not been heard from. I fear your suspicions are
too true!"

He crossed the street and disappeared into the low and elderly residence
of his parents.

"Alas! alas!" exclaimed a grave and gentle old man. "That Andrew Zane
should not be here to meet a charge like this! But I'll not believe it
till I have prayed with my God."

Within the Zane residence all was as in other houses on funeral eves. In
the front parlor, ready for an inquest or an undertaker, lay the late
master of the place, laid out, and all the visitors departed except his
housekeeper, Agnes, and her friend, "Podge" Byerly. The latter was a
sunny-haired and nimble little lady, under twenty years of age, who
taught in one of the public schools and boarded with her former
school-mate, Agnes Wilt. Agnes was an orphan of unknown parentage, by
many supposed to have been a niece or relative of Mr. Zane's deceased
wife, whose place she took at the head of the table, and had grown to be
one of the principal social authorities in Kensington. In Reverend Mr.
Van de Lear's church she was both teacher and singer. The young men of
Kensington were all in love with her, but it was generally understood
that she had accepted Andrew Zane, and was engaged to him.

Andrew was not dissipated, but was fond of pranks, and so restive under
his father's positive hand that he twice ran away to distant seaports,
and thus incurred a remarkable amount of intuitive gossip, such as
belongs to all old settled suburban societies. This occasional firmness
of character in the midst of a generally light and flexible life, now
told against him in the public mind. "He has nerve enough to do anything
desperate in a pinch," exclaimed the very wisest. "Didn't William Zane
find him out once in the island of Barbadoes grubbing sugar-cane with a
hoe, and the thermometer at 120 in the shade? And didn't he swear he'd
stay there and die unless concessions were made to him, and certain
things never brought up again? Didn't even his iron-shod father have to
give way before he would come home? Ah! Andrew is light-hearted, but he
is an Indian in self-will!"

To-night Agnes was in the deepest grief. Upon her, and only her, fell
the whole burden of this double crime and mystery, ten times more
terrible that her lover was compromised and had disappeared.

"Go to bed, Podge!" said Agnes, as the clock in the engine-house struck
midnight. "