e replied?"

"Oh, as to the time, that it was somewhere before noon. Her reason for
being sure of this was that Miss Tremaine declined to wait till another
effort had been made to find Miss Dare, saying she had an engagement at
twelve which she did not wish to break."

"And the girl's notions about where Miss Dare had gone?"

"Such as you expect, Byrd. She said she did not know any thing about it,
but that Miss Dare often went strolling in the garden, or even in the
woods when she came to Professor Darling's house, and that she supposed
she had gone off on some such walk at this time, for, at one o'clock or
thereabouts, she saw her pass in the horse-car on her way back to the
town."

"Hickory, I wish you had not told me this just as I am going back to the
city."

"Wish I had not told it, or wish I had not gone to Professor Darling's
house as you requested?"

"Wish you had not told it. I dare not wish the other. But you spoke of
seeing Miss Dare; how was that? Where did you run across her?"

"Do you want to hear?"

"Of course, of course."

"But I thought----"

"Oh, never mind, old boy; tell me the whole now, as long as you have
told me any. Was she in the house?"

"I will tell you. I had asked the girl all these questions, as I have
said, and was about to leave the observatory and go below when I thought
I would cast another glance around the curious old place, and in doing
so caught a glimpse of a huge portfolio of charts, as I supposed,
standing upright in a rack that stretched across the further portion of
the room. Somehow my heart misgave me when I saw this rack, and,
scarcely conscious what it was I feared, I crossed the floor and looked
behind the portfolio. Byrd, there was a woman crouched there--a woman
whose pallid cheeks and burning eyes lifted to meet my own, told me only
too plainly that it was Miss Dare. I have had many experiences,"
Hickory allowed, after a moment, "and some of them any thing but
pleasant to myself, but I don't think I ever felt just as I did at that
instant. I believe I attempted a bow--I don't remember; or, at least,
tried to murmur some excuse, but the look that came into her face
paralyzed me, and I stopped before I had gotten very far, and waited to
hear what she would say. But she did not say much; she merely rose, and,
turning toward me, exclaimed: 'No apologies; you are a detective, I
suppose?' And when I nodded, or made some other token that she had
guessed correctl