aps you
better see if you can open the door."

There was studied calm in her voice, but her face belied her words. She
was anxious lest Kate was playing one of her pranks. She knew Kate's
careless, fun-loving ways. It was more to her that all things should move
decently and in order than that Kate should even be perfectly well. But
Marcia's white face behind her stepmother's ample shoulder showed a dread
of something worse than a mere indisposition. David Spafford took alarm at
once. He put down the silver syrup jug from which he had been pouring
golden maple syrup on his cakes, and pushed his chair back with a click.

"Perhaps she has fainted!" he said, and Marcia saw how deeply he was
concerned. Father and lover both started up stairs, the father angry, the
lover alarmed. The Squire grumbled all the way up that Kate should sleep
so late, but David said nothing. He waited anxiously behind while the
Squire worked with the door. Madam Schuyler and Marcia had followed them,
and halting curiously just behind came the two maids. They all loved Miss
Kate and were deeply interested in the day's doings. They did not want
anything to interfere with the well-planned pageant.

The Squire fumbled nervously with the latch, all the time calling upon his
daughter to open the door; then wrathfully placed his solid shoulder and
knee in just the right place, and with a groan and wrench the latch gave
way, and the solid oak door swung open, precipitating the anxious group
somewhat suddenly into the room.

Almost immediately they all became aware that there was no one there.
David had stood with averted eyes at first, but that second sense which
makes us aware without sight when others are near or absent, brought with
it an unnamed anxiety. He looked wildly about.

The bed had not been slept in; that they all saw at once. The room was in
confusion, but perhaps not more than might have been expected when the
occupant was about to leave on the morrow. There were pieces of paper and
string upon the floor and one or two garments lying about as if carelessly
cast off in a hurry. David recognized the purple muslin frock Kate had
worn the night before, and put out his hand to touch it as it lay across
the foot of the bed, vainly reaching after her who was not there.

They stood in silence, father, mother, sister, and lover, and took in
every detail of the deserted room, then looked blankly into one another's
white faces, and in the eyes of