me I found this crushed
bonbon."

I could see that Mrs. Ocumpaugh was amazed, well-nigh confounded, but
her manner altered from that moment.

"Tell me about it."

And I did. I related the doubts I had felt concerning the completeness
of the police investigation as regarded the bungalow; my visit there at
night with Mrs. Carew, and the discoveries we had made. Then I alluded
again to the footprints and the important clue they offered.

"But the child?" she interrupted. "Where is the child? If taken there,
why wasn't she found there? Don't you see that your conclusions are all
wild--incredible? A dream? An impossibility?"

"I go by the signs," I replied. "There seems to be nothing else to go
by."

"And you want--you intend, to measure those steps?"

"That is why I am here, Mrs. Ocumpaugh. To request permission to
continue this investigation and to ask for the key to the bungalow. Mrs.
Carew's is no longer available; or rather, I should prefer to proceed
without it."

With sudden impulse she advanced rapidly toward me.

"What is Mrs. Carew doing this morning?" she asked.

"Preparing for departure. She is quite resolved to sail to-day. Do you
wish to see her? Do you wish her confirmation of my story? I think she
will come, if you send for her."

"There is no need." This after an instant's hesitation. "I have perfect
confidence in Mrs. Carew; and in you too," she added, with what she
meant for a kind look. She was by nature without coquetry, and this
attempt to please, in the midst of an overwhelming distress absorbing
all her faculties, struck me as the most pitiful effort I had ever seen.
My feeling for her made it very hard for me to proceed.

"Then I may go on?" I said.

"Of course, of course. I don't know where the key is; I shall have to
give orders. You will wait a few minutes, somewhere in one of the
adjoining rooms, while I look up Mr. Atwater?"

"Certainly."

She was trembling, feverish, impatient.

"Shall _I_ not look up Mr. Atwater for you?" I asked.

"No. I am feeling better. I can go myself."

In another moment she had left the room, having forgotten her own
suggestion that I should await her return in some adjoining apartment.

XIX

FRENZY

Five minutes--ten minutes--elapsed and I became greatly impatient. I
walked the floor; I stared from the window; I did everything I could
think of to pass away these unendurable moments of suspense with
creditable self-possession. But I