now lying--where?

"Is she hurt?" faltered Florence, stooping, herself, to listen. "Can you
hear anything--anything?"

For an instant he did not answer; every faculty was absorbed in the one
sense; then slowly and in gasps he began to mutter:

"I think--I hear--_something_. Her step--no, no, no step. All is as
quiet as death; not a sound,--not a breath--she has fainted. O God! O
God! Why this calamity on top of all!"

He had sprung to his feet at the utterance of this invocation, but next
moment was down on his knees again, listening--listening.

Never was silence more profound; they were hearkening for murmurs from a
tomb. Florence began to sense the full horror of it all, and was swaying
helplessly when Mr. Van Broecklyn impulsively lifted his hand in an
admonitory Hush! and through the daze of her faculties a small far sound
began to make itself heard, growing louder as she waited, then becoming
faint again, then altogether ceasing only to renew itself once more,
till it resolved into an approaching step, faltering in its course, but
coming ever nearer and nearer.

"She's safe! She's not hurt!" sprang from Florence's lips in
inexpressible relief; and expecting Mr. Van Broecklyn to show an equal
joy, she turned toward him, with the cheerful cry.

"Now if she has been so fortunate as to find that missing page, we shall
all be repaid for our fright."

A movement on his part, a shifting of position which brought him finally
to his feet, but he gave no other proof of having heard her, nor did his
countenance mirror her relief. "It is as if he dreaded, instead of
hailed, her return," was Florence's inward comment as she watched him
involuntarily recoil at each fresh token of Violet's advance.

Yet because this seemed so very unnatural, she persisted in her efforts
to lighten the situation, and when he made no attempt to encourage
Violet in her approach, she herself stooped and called out a cheerful
welcome which must have rung sweetly in the poor little detective's
ears.

A sorry sight was Violet, when, helped by Florence she finally crawled
into view through the narrow opening and stood once again on the cellar
floor. Pale, trembling, and soiled with the dust of years, she presented
a helpless figure enough, till the joy in Florence's face recalled some
of her spirit, and, glancing down at her hand in which a sheet of paper
was visible, she asked for Mr. Spielhagen.

"I've got the formula," she said. "If you