run. It was
storming so I did not see her trunk till this mornin', when I found it
on the platform. I wish I had gone after her and made her take a sleigh.
If I had she wouldn't now have been dead, and, I swow, I feel as if I
had killed her. I wonder why under the sun she turned into the lots,
unless she was goin' to Collingwood--'

'Or Tracy Park,' Frank said, involuntarily.

'Were you expecting any one?' Mr. St. Claire asked.

Sinking into a chair, Frank replied:

'No, I was not, but Arthur, who has been worse than usual for a few
days, has again a fancy that Gretchen is coming. He says now that she
was not in the ship with him, but that he has written her to join him
here, and yesterday he took it into his head that she would be here last
night, and insisted that the carriage be sent to meet her; but John had
hurt his back, and as I had no faith in her coming, he did not go. I
wish he had; it might have saved this woman's life, although she is not
Gretchen.'

Frank had made his confession, except so far as deceiving his brother
was concerned, and he felt his mind eased a little, though there was
still a lump in his throat, and a feeling of disquiet in his heart, with
a wish that the dead woman had never crossed his path, and a conviction
that he had not yet seen the worst of it.

Mr. St. Claire looked at him thoughtfully a moment, and then said:

'I should not accuse myself too much. You could not know that any one
would be there, and this woman certainly is not the Gretchen of whom
your brother talks so much, and whose picture is in his room. Has he
seen her? Does he know of the accident?'

'I have not told him yet. He is not feeling well to-day. Charles says he
is still in bed,' was Frank's reply.

'We may find something in her trunk,' Mr. St. Claire continued, 'which
will give us a clue to her history. Where do you suppose she kept her
key?'

No one volunteered an answer, until Harold suggested that if she had a
pocket it was probably there, when half a dozen hands or more at once
felt for the pocket, which was found at last, and proved to be one of
great capacity, and to contain a heterogeneous mass of contents: A
purse, in which were two or three small German coins, an English
sovereign, and a five dollar green-back; two handkerchiefs, one soiled
and coarse, bearing in German text the initials 'N.B.' the other small
and fine, bearing the initial 'J.,' also in German text: a pair of
scissors, a thimb