. "I know a good deal more, and it is all
worse and worse. I got the chambermaid to enquire, and she found that a
tall man came with a close carriage--"

"A tall man? a close carriage?" almost gasped Tom Leslie, though he only
spoke to Walter Harding. "Do you hear what she says? This was a
Virginian girl--he is a Virginian--his being here this morning--over the
Suspension Bridge--those trunks on the rack--by George, Harding--don't
you see?"

"But what could _he_ have been to _her_?" asked Harding, who did not yet
see it in the same clear light.

Bell Crawford had meanwhile gone on with her story.--"That the tall man
went up-stairs, asking one of the waiters for number Fifteen, and that
five minutes afterwards he came down with a very small lady, dressed for
travelling, ordered down the baggage from that room, put her into the
carriage and got in himself after throwing a dollar to the waiter who
brought down the trunks; and that then the carriage drove rapidly away
towards the Bridge."

"By George, I knew it!" said Tom Leslie, this time so loudly that all
could hear him. All turned to him in surprise.

"What do you mean?" asked Richard Crawford.

"That I believe I know the man who has taken away this girl!" answered
Tom Leslie.

"And I believe that _I_ do, _now_," said Walter Harding, at last fairly
convinced.

"Stop," said Bell. "There was one thing I forgot to tell you. She had
evidently left in great haste, and two or three little things were left
scattered around the room. Here are two of them, that I picked up and
put in my pocket--one of her tiny little shoes, and this locket. The
locket I have before seen in her possession. She seemed to be sorry that
I had seen it, as I accidentally did, and said that it was the portrait
of a dear friend of her family." She took out a little slipper, scarcely
too large for an ordinary child of ten years, yet retaining the mould of
the graceful atom of foot that had rested warm within it; and with it
she took out the enamelled locket we have before seen, and handed it to
the gentlemen. Tom Leslie grasped it with an almost frantic haste and
threw it open.

"Dexter Ralston!" he cried. "Look, Harding! It is all explained! I know,
now, why he haunted this house, and what the sharp cry meant when he
crossed the hall this morning! Don't you see!"

They did see, as little by little, while the dinner-dishes were rattling
in the dining-room adjoining, Tom Leslie explained to h