out
my hand to take the look at the sleeper in there that he had done.

He stayed my hand, waved it back, folded his arms, as if nothing unusual
had occurred, and questioned me.

"What has she talked about to-night?"

"She has said very little."

"Tell me something that she has said, immediately"; and he looked
fearfully agitated.

"What has happened?" I asked; and again I caught at the hangings which
concealed the fearful thing that he had seen.

"Answer me!" Two words only, but tremendously uttered.

"She asked me if I liked the tower in the church-yard," I said.

"You told her what?"

"That I did like it."

"Has she seemed worried about anything?" and Mr. Axtell threw up a
window-sash, letting the cold March wind into this room of sickness. As
he did so, I lifted the folds that the wind rudely swayed. _Miss Axtell
was not there_.

He turned around. I stood speechless.

"How long have you been asleep?" he asked, coolly, as if nothing had
occurred.

"Not at all," I answered. Then I thought, "I must have slept, else she
could not have gone out without my knowing it."--"I heard the stroke of
four and of five," I said.

He looked up and down the street, only a little lighted by the feeble,
old, fading moon.

"Have you any idea where she would go?" he asked.

"She may be in the house," I said; "why not look?"

"No; I found the front-door unfastened. I thought Katie might have
forgotten it, when I went to see. She has gone out, I know."

He looked for the wrappings she might have put on, searching, as he did
so, for the small lamp that always was placed beside the larger one upon
the table. It was gone. It had been there at four o'clock, when I put
wood on the fire.

"Where would she carry a lamp?" Mr. Axtell asked, as he went on,
searching, in known places, for articles of apparel that were not in
their wonted homes. Having found them, he went out hurriedly, went to
his own room, came out thence a moment after, with boots on his feet in
place of the slippers he had frightened me with, and an overcoat across
his arm. He did not seem to see me, as I stood waiting in the hall.

"Where are you going?" I asked of him, but he did not answer. He went
straight on by me, and down, out of the house, closing the great
hall-door after him with a force that shook the walls.

I went into the deserted room, put down the window-sash that he had left
open, laid more wood upon the dying embers, caught up Miss Ax