fforts toward further discoveries, I beckoned
her to follow me into the station. It was but a step, but it gave me
time to think. What was I encouraging this young girl to do? To reveal
to _me_, who had no claim upon her but that of friendship, a secret
which had not been given to the police? True, it might not be worth
much, but it was also true that it might be worth a great deal. Did she
know how much? I wanted money--few wanted it more--but I felt that I
could not listen to her story till I had fairly settled this point. I
therefore hastened to interpose a remark:

"Miss Graham, you are good enough to offer to reveal some fact hitherto
concealed. Do you do this because you have no closer friend than myself,
or because you do not know what such knowledge may be worth to the
person you give it to--in money, I mean?"

"In money? I am not thinking of money," was her amazed reply; "I am
thinking of Gwendolen."

"I understand, but you should think of the practical results as well.
Have you not heard of the enormous reward offered by Mr. Ocumpaugh?"

"No; I--"

"Five thousand dollars for information; and fifty thousand to the one
who will bring her back within the week unharmed. Mr. Ocumpaugh cabled
to that effect yesterday."

"It is a large sum," she faltered, and for a moment she hesitated. Then,
with a sweet and candid look which sank deep into my heart, she added
gravely: "I had rather not think of money in connection with Gwendolen.
If what I have to tell leads to her recovery, you can be trusted, I
know, to do what is right toward me. Mr. Trevitt, the man who stole her
from her couch and carried her away through Mrs. Carew's grounds in a
wagon or otherwise, is a long-haired, heavily whiskered man of sixty or
more years of age. His face is deeply wrinkled, but chiefly marked by a
long scar running down between his eyebrows, which are so shaggy that
they would quite hide his eyes if they were not lit up with an
extraordinary expression of resolution, carried almost to the point of
frenzy; a fearsome man, making your heart stand still when he pauses to
speak to you."

Startled as I had seldom been, for reasons which will hereafter appear,
I surveyed her in mingled wonder and satisfaction.

"His name?" I demanded.

"I do not know his name."

Again I stopped to look at her.

"Does Mrs. Ocumpaugh?"

"I do not think so. She only knows what I told her."

"And what did you tell her?"

"Ah! who are these?"