the world to see Mrs. Ocumpaugh as happy with
Gwendolen again as I am with my little nephew. Are you quite sure that
there is any possibility of this? I was told that the child's shoe has
been found in the river; but almost immediately following this
information came the report that there was something odd about this
shoe, and that Mrs. Ocumpaugh had gone into hysterics. Do _you_ know
what they meant by that? I was just going over to see."

I did know what they meant, but I preferred to seem ignorant.

"I have not seen Mrs. Ocumpaugh," I evasively rejoined. "But _I_ don't
look for the child to be drawn from the water."

"Nor I," she repeated, with a hoarse catch in her breath. "It is
thirty-six hours since we lost her. Time enough for the current to have
carried her sweet little body far away from here."

I surveyed the lady before me in amazement.

"Then _you_ think she strayed down to the water?"

"Yes; it would madden me to believe otherwise; loving her so well, and
her parents so well, I dare not think of a worse fate."

Taking advantage of her amiability and the unexpected opportunity it
offered for a leading question, I hereupon ventured to say: "You were
not at home, I hear, when she vanished from the bungalow."

"No; that is, if it happened before three o'clock. I arrived from the
station just as the clock was striking the hour, and having my little
nephew with me, I was too much occupied in reconciling him to his new
home, to hear or see anything outside. Most unfortunate!" she mourned,
"most unfortunate! I shall never cease reproaching myself. A tragedy at
my door"--here she glanced across the shrubbery at the bungalow--"and I
occupied with my own affairs!"

With a flush, the undoubted result of her own earnestness, she turned as
if to go. But I could not let her depart without another question:

"Excuse me, Mrs. Carew, but you gave me permission to seem importunate.
With the exception of her nurse, you were the one person nearest the
bungalow at the time. Didn't you hear a carriage drive through your
grounds at about the hour the alarm was first started? I know you have
been asked this before, but not by me; and it is a very important fact
to have settled; very important for those who wish to discover this
child at once."

For reply she gave me a look of very honest amazement.

"Of course I did," she replied. "I came in a carriage myself from the
station and naturally heard it drive away."

At