thought was a very peculiar look.

Instantly it was caught up and carried with a rush up the slope to where
Mrs. Ocumpaugh could be seen awaiting it with outstretched arms. But I
did not linger to mark her reception of it. Miss Graham had drawn me to
one side and was whispering in my ear:

"I must talk to you. I can not keep back another moment what I think or
what I feel. Some one is playing with Mrs. Ocumpaugh's fears. That shoe
is Gwendolen's, but it is not the mate of the one found on the bank
above. That was for the left foot _and so is this one_. Did you not
notice?"

II

"A FEARSOME MAN"

The effect of this statement upon me was greater than even she had
contemplated.

"You thought the child had been stolen for the reward she would bring?"
she continued. "She was not; she was taken out of pure hate, and that is
why I suffer so. What may they not do to her! In what hole hide her! My
darling, O my darling!"

She was going off into hysterics, but the look and touch I gave her
recalled her to herself.

"We need to be calm," I urged. "You, because you have something of
importance to impart, and I, because of the action I must take as soon
as the facts you have concealed become known to me. What gives you such
confidence in this belief, which I am sure is not shared by the police,
and who is the _some one_ who, as you say, is playing upon Mrs.
Ocumpaugh's fears? A short time ago it was as _the wretch_ you spoke of
him. Are not _some one_ and _the wretch_ one and the same person, and
can you not give him now a name?"

We had been moving all this time in the direction of the station and had
now reached the foot of the platform. Pausing, she cast a last look up
the bank. The trees were thick and hid from our view the Ocumpaugh
mansion, but in imagination she beheld the mother moaning over that
little shoe.

"I shall never return there," she muttered; "why do I hesitate so to
speak!" Then in a burst, as I watched her in growing excitement:
"She--Mrs. Ocumpaugh--begged me not to tell what she believed had
nothing to do with our Gwendolen's loss. But I can not keep silence.
This proof of a conspiracy against herself certainly relieves me from
any promise I may have made her. Mr. Trevitt, I am positive that I know
who carried off Gwendolen."

This was becoming interesting, intensely interesting to me. Glancing
about and noting that the group down at the water-edge had become
absorbed again in renewed e