stood
up, and she looked as if she were dead. She told me to stay where I was
just fifteen minutes, then I might go, but I must not stir before. Then
she kissed me again, and her lips were like ice. She went out, and I
knew the door was not locked, but I was afraid to stir. I could hear her
running about. Then I heard the outer door slam, and I looked at my
watch, and it was fifteen minutes. Then I ran out and up the road as
fast as I could. Just before I saw Doctor Elliot the New York train
passed. I heard it. I think she was hurrying to catch that."

Gordon nodded.

"Oh, Uncle Tom, who was she, and why did she lock me up?" asked
Clemency.

"Clemency," said Gordon, in a sterner voice than Clemency had ever heard
him use toward her, "never speak, never think, of that woman or that man
again. Now go out and eat your dinner."

CHAPTER XII

Clemency was so worn out that Doctor Gordon insisted upon her going to
bed directly after dinner, and he and James had a solitary evening in
the office, with the exception of Gordon's frequent absence in his
wife's room. Each time when he returned he looked more gloomy. "I have
increased the morphine almost as much as I dare," he said, coming into
the office about ten. He sat down and lit his pipe. James laid down the
evening paper which he had been reading. "Is she asleep now?" he asked.

"Yes. By the way, Elliot, have you guessed who that woman was who
kidnapped Clemency?"

James hesitated. "I don't fairly know whether I am right, but I have
guessed," he replied.

"Who?"

"The nurse."

"You are right. It was the nurse. That man had won her over, and set her
up housekeeping in Westover. He had been staying at the hotel there
before he came here. He was her lover, of course, although he was too
circumspect not to guard the secret. She has been living in that house
for the last three months under the name of Mrs. Wood, a widow. The
former occupants went away last summer, Aaron has been telling me. He
said that once he himself saw the man enter the house, and he had seen
the woman on the street. She had made herself quite popular in Westover.
It was no part of that man's policy to keep his vice behind locked
doors. Locks themselves are the best witness against evil. She attended
the Dutch Reformed Church regularly. She was present at all the church
suppers, and everybody has called on her in Westover. Now I think she
has fled, half-crazed with grief over the death o