mp, he
moved, much to my surprise as well as to my intense interest, toward the
door of the small cupboard where I had myself slept when in his service.

That he still meditated some deviltry which would call for my full
presence of mind to combat successfully, I did not in the least doubt.
Yet the agitation under which I crossed the floor was more the result of
an immediate anticipation of seeing--and in this place of all others in
the world--the child about whom my thoughts had clung so persistently
for forty-two hours, than of any results to myself in the way of injury
or misfortune. Though the room was small and my passage across it
necessarily short, I had time to remember Mrs. Ocumpaugh's pitiful
countenance as I saw it gazing in agony of expectation from her window
overlooking the river, and to catch again the sounds, less true and yet
strangely thrilling, of Mrs. Carew's voice as she said: "A tragedy at my
doors and I occupied with my own affairs!" Nor was this all. A
recollection of Miss Graham's sorrow came up before my eyes also, and,
truest of all, most penetrating to me of all the loves which seemed to
encompass this rare and winsome infant, the infinite tenderness with
which I once saw Mr. Ocumpaugh lift her to his breast, during one of my
interviews with him at Homewood.

All this before the door had swung open. Afterward, I saw nothing and
thought of nothing but the small figure lying in the spot where I had
once pillowed my own head, and with no more luxuries or even comforts
about her than had been my lot under this broad but by no means
hospitable roof.

A bare wall, a narrow cot, a table with a bottle and glass on it and the
child in the bed--that was all. But God knows, it was enough to me at
that breathless moment; and advancing eagerly, I was about to stoop over
the little head sunk deep in its pillow, when the old man stepped
between and with a short laugh remarked:

"There's no such hurry. I have something to say first, in explanation of
the anger you have seen me display; an anger which is unseemly in a man
professing to have conquered the sins and passions of lost humanity. I
did follow this child. You were right in saying that it was my horse and
buggy which were seen in the wake of the wagon which came from the
region of Homewood and lost itself in the cross-roads running between
the North River and the Sound. For two days and a night I followed it,
through more difficulties than I could