owing from the north and the temperature falling to within a few
degrees of zero.

A faint hope lingered with Mr. Voss--the hope that Archie had gone home
with some friend. But as the morning wore on and he did not make his
appearance this hope began to fade away, and died before many hours.
Nearly every male guest at Mrs. Birtwell's party was seen and
questioned during the day, but not one of them had seen Archie after he
left the house. A waiter who was questioned said that he remembered
seeing him:

"I watched him go down the steps and go off alone, and the wind seemed
as if it would blow him away. He wasn't just himself, sir, I'm afraid."

If a knife had cut down into the father's quivering flesh, the pain
would have been as nothing to that inflicted by this last sentence. It
only confirmed his worst fears.

The afternoon papers contained a notice of the fact that a young
gentleman who had gone away from a fashionable party at a late hour on
the night before had not been heard of by his friends, who were anxious
and distressed about him. Foul play was hinted at, as the young man
wore a valuable diamond pin and had a costly gold watch in his pocket.
On the morning afterward advertisements appeared offering a large
reward for any information that would lead to the discovery of the
young man, living or dead. They were accompanied by minute descriptions
of his person and dress. But there came no response. Days and weeks
passed; and though the advertisements were repeated and newspapers
called public attention to the matter, not a single clue was found.

A young man, with the kisses of his mother sweet on his pure lips, had
left her for an evening's social enjoyment at the house of one of her
closest and dearest friends, and she never looked upon his face again.
He had entered the house of that friend with a clear head and steady
nerves, and he had gone out at midnight bewildered with the wine that
had been poured without stint to her hundred guests, young and old. How
it had fared with him the reader knows too well.

CHAPTER III.

"HEAVENS and earth! Why doesn't some one go to the door?" exclaimed Mr.
Spencer Birtwell, rousing himself from a heavy sleep as the bell was
rung for the third time, and now with four or five vigorous and rapid
jerks, each of which caused the handle of the bell to strike with the
noise of a hammer.

The gray dawn was just breaking.

"There it is again! Good heavens! What doe