cular about little Archie. Oh, Fairy-foot
was all right--there was not a horse in Tennessee that Mr. Briscoe could
not handle. They had no fear at all about the mare. But after Mr. Briscoe
had driven away, the groom who had been ordered to investigate the hotel
had found signs of intrusion in the vacant building. Broken victuals were
on the hearth of the serving-room adjoining the great dining-hall, and an
old slouched hat was lying in that apartment, evidently dropped
inadvertently near one of the tables. A rude lantern with a candle burned
down almost to the socket was in an upper chamber, usually illuminated by
acetylene gas, as was all the building. Bayne remembered, according the
circumstance a fresh and added importance, the fleeing apparition in the
vacant hotel that had frightened Lillian, and Mrs. Briscoe's declaration
that a light had flashed the previous night from the interior of the
deserted building. But this intrusion was not necessarily of inimical
significance, he argued. Tramps, perhaps, or some belated hunter stealing
a shelter from the blinding fog, or even petty thieves, finding an
unguarded entrance--it might mean no more. In fact, such intrusion was
the normal incident of any vacant house in remote seclusion, unprotected
by a caretaker. But this reasoning did not convince the servants.
Something had happened, they reiterated; something terrible had happened!

Bayne, flouting fear as a folly, yet himself feeling the cold chill of
dismay, dared not dismiss their anxieties as groundless. He hastily
arranged for a patrol of the only road by which Briscoe could return,
incongruously feeling at the moment absurd and shamefaced in view of his
host's indignation and ridicule should he presently appear. Bayne had
ordered the phaeton with the intention of himself rousing the
country-side and organizing a search when, to his consternation, the two
ladies, who had observed the colloguing group, issued on the veranda,
frantic with terror, pale and agonized. Both had grasped the fact of
disaster, albeit unformulated, yet both hoped against hope.

"Take me with you!" Lillian cried, seizing Bayne's wrist in a grip like
steel. "Take me to my child!"

He could not be rid of her importunacy, and he came to think it was well
that the two should be separated, for Mrs. Briscoe had not abandoned all
self-control, and her gallant struggle for composure appealed for his
aid.

"No," she had said firmly; "Ned would expec