which you are ignorant."

"Oh, sir, what do you mean?"

"Wait just one moment, and I then may be able to tell you," said Nick,
rising. "I have something here that I wish to show you."

He went to his library desk and took from a drawer the silver jewel
casket which he had brought from Central Park.

When he turned he held it in his extended hand, and the eyes of the girl
suddenly fell upon it.

Instantly she leaped to her feet, as pale as death itself.

Then a scream, as of sudden, ungovernable terror, rose from her lips and
rang with piercing shrillness through the house.

"Catch her, Chick--she's fainting!" yelled Nick, with eyes ablaze. "By
Heaven! we've struck the trail at last!"

CHAPTER X.

ON THE TRAIL.

Nick Carter was a little perplexed.

Miss Violet Page had recovered from her sudden swoon, and although still
very pale she sat gazing calmly at the silver jewel casket, which Nick
was again displaying.

Somewhat to Nick's surprise, considering the girl's abrupt collapse upon
first beholding the casket, Miss Page had just declared that she had
never seen it before that evening.

"You never saw it before?" exclaimed Nick, almost incredulously.

"Never until you produced it from your desk a few minutes ago,"
reiterated Violet.

"Why, then, were you so overcome upon seeing it?"

"I will tell you why, Detective Carter, yet I fear that you will think
me very weak and foolish to have been so seriously affected."

"No; I think not."

"I had a terrible dream last night, sir," Violet now explained. "I
dreamed that I was alone in an enormous graveyard at midnight, with a
full moon revealing the dismal surroundings, the dark tombs, the
staring, white headstones and the silent graves."

"Not very cheerful--certainly," smiled Nick.

"What followed was infinitely more terrible," continued Violet, with an
irrepressible shudder.

"What was that?"

"I dreamed that I saw a grave near which I was standing suddenly begin
to open, as if a living being were pushing up the ground from within.
Then I saw a fleshless hand appear above the disturbed sods. Then a
sightless human skull thrust itself forth, and presently, filling me
with a terror I cannot describe, the entire skeleton emerged from the
partly open grave, and arose and approached me."

"A grewsome dream, indeed," remarked Nick. "But what of the casket?"

"This of the casket, sir," concluded Violet. "In the skeleton's right
hand, which wa