he door
for Gardley and sent her up to call Rosa.

But the woman returned presently with word that Miss Rosa was not in her
room, and there was no sign that her bed had been slept in during the
night. The woman's face was sullen. She did not like Rosa, but was
afraid of her. This to her was only another of Miss Rosa's pranks, and
very likely her doting father would manage to blame the servants with
the affair.

Mr. Rogers's face grew stern. His eyes flashed angrily as he turned and
strode up the stairs to his daughter's room, but when he came down again
he was holding a note in his trembling hand and his face was ashen
white.

"Read that, Gardley," he said, thrusting the note into Gardley's hands
and motioning at the same time for the servants to go away.

Gardley took the note, yet even as he read he noticed that the paper
was the same as those he carried in his pocket. There was a peculiar
watermark that made it noticeable.

The note was a flippant little affair from Rosa, telling her father she
had gone away to be married and that she would let him know where she
was as soon as they were located. She added that he had forced her to
this step by being so severe with her and not allowing her lover to come
to see her. If he had been reasonable she would have stayed at home and
let him give her a grand wedding; but as it was she had only this way of
seeking her happiness. She added that she knew he would forgive her, and
she hoped he would come to see that her way had been best, and Forsythe
was all that he could desire as a son-in-law.

Gardley uttered an exclamation of dismay as he read, and, looking up,
found the miserable eyes of the stricken father upon him. For the moment
his own alarm concerning Margaret and his perplexity about the letters
was forgotten in the grief of the man who had been his friend.

"When did she go?" asked Gardley, quickly looking up.

"She took supper with me and then went to her room, complaining of a
headache," said the father, his voice showing his utter hopelessness.
"She may have gone early in the evening, perhaps, for we all turned in
about nine o'clock to keep the house quiet on her account."

"Have you any idea which way they went, east or west?" Gardley was the
keen adviser in a crisis now, his every sense on the alert.

The old man shook his head. "It is too late now," he said, still in that
colorless voice. "They will have reached the railroad somewhere. They
will have