ithout a sense of gratitude that he presently discovered
the bathroom at the rear of the hall. Here he laved his face and head,
being very much refreshed by the process.

A secondary hall led away from the first, and through this he came at
once to the rooms which had evidently been set apart for Dorothy and
her husband. The room which he knew was supposed to be his own
contained nothing save comfortable furnishings. He therefore went at
once to Dorothy's apartments.

She occupied a suite of three rooms--one of them large, the others
small. Exquisite order was apparent in all, combined with signs of a
dainty, cultured taste. It seemed a sacrilege to search her
possessions, and he made no attempt to do so. Indeed, he gained
nothing from his quick, keen survey of the place, save a sense of her
beauty and refinement as expressed in the features of her "nest." He
felt himself warranted in opening a closet, into which he cast a
comprehensive glance.

It seemed well filled with hanging gowns, but several hooks were empty.

On a shelf high up was a suit-case, empty, since it weighed almost
nothing as he lifted up the end. He took it down, found marks where
fingers had disturbed the dust upon its lid, then stood on a chair,
examined the shelf, and became aware that a second case had been
removed, as shown by the absence of accumulated dust, which had
gathered all about the place it had formerly occupied.

Replacing the case he had taken from the shelf, he closed the closet,
in possession of the fact that some preparation, at least, had been
made against some sort of a journey. He was certain the empty hooks
had been stripped of garments for the flight, but whether by Dorothy
herself or by her relatives he could not, of course, determine.

He repaired at once to the rooms farther back, which the Robinsons had
occupied. When he switched on the lights in the first one entered, he
knew it had been the old man's place of refuge, for certain signs of
the occupancy of Mr. Robinson were not lacking.

It reeked of stale cigar-smoke, which would hang in the curtains for a
week. It was very untidy. There were many indications that old
Robinson had quitted in haste. On the table were ash-trays, old
cigar-stumps, matches, burned and new; magazines, hairpins, a
tooth-brush, and two calf-bound volumes of a legal aspect. One was a
lawyer's treatise on wills, the other a history of broken testaments,
statistical as well as