ll you you _must_ make it!" cried Basil Hurlhurst. "Go and do as
I bid you at once! Don't stand there staring at me; you are losing
golden moments. Fly at once, I tell you!"

Poor old Mason was literally astounded. What had come over his kind,
courteous master?

"I have nothing that could aid them in the search," he said to
himself, pacing restlessly up and down the room. "Ah! stay!--there is
Evalia's portrait! The little one must look like her mother if she is
living yet!"

He went to his writing-desk and drew from a private drawer a little
package tied with a faded ribbon, which he carefully untied with
trembling fingers.

It was a portrait on ivory of a beautiful, girlish, dimpled face, with
shy, upraised blue eyes, a smiling rosebud mouth, soft pink cheeks,
and a wealth of rippling, sunny-golden hair.

"She must look like this," he whispered. "God grant that I may find
her!"

"Mr. Rex Lyon says, please may he see you a few moments, sir," said
Mason, popping his black head in at the door.

"No; I do not wish to see any one, and I will not see any one. Have
you that satchel packed, I say?"

"Yes, sir; it will be ready directly, sir," said the man, obediently.

"Don't come to me with any more messages--lock everybody out. Do you
hear me, Mason? I _will_ be obeyed!"

"Yes, sir, I hear. No one shall disturb you."

Again Basil Hurlhurst turned to the portrait, paying little attention
to what was transpiring around him. "I shall put it at once in the
hands of the cleverest detectives," he mused; "surely they will be
able to find some trace of my lost darling."

Seventeen years! Ah, what might have happened her in that time? The
master of Whitestone Hall always kept a file of the Baltimore papers;
he rapidly ran his eye down the different columns.

"Ah, here is what I want," he exclaimed, stopping short. "Messrs.
Tudor, Peck & Co., Experienced Detectives, ---- Street, Baltimore.
They are noted for their skill. I will give the case into their hands.
If they restore my darling child alive and well into my hands I will
make them wealthy men--if she is dead, the blow will surely kill me."

He heard voices debating in the corridor without.

"Did you tell him I wished particularly to see him?" asked Rex, rather
discomfited at the refusal.

"Yes, sir," said Mason, dubiously.

"Miss Pluma, his daughter, wishes me to speak with him on a very
important matter. I am surprised that he so persistently refuses to
s