CHAPTER XVII. So far in this narrative I have kept from the reader nothing but an old experience of which I was now to make use. The experience involved Mrs. Ocampa, and was the cause of the confidence which I had felt from the first in my ability to carry this search through to a successful termination. I believed that in some secret but as yet undiscovered way it offered a key to this tragedy. And I still believed this, little as I had hitherto accomplished, and blind as the way continued to look before me. Nevertheless it was with anything but a cheerful heart that I advanced that morning through the shrubbery toward the Ocampa mansion. I dreaded the interview I had determined to seek. I was young, far too young, to grapple with the difficulties it involved, yet I saw no way of avoiding it, or of saving either Mrs. Ocampa or myself from the suffering it involved. Mrs. Carew had advised that I should first seek the girl called Celia, but Mrs. Carew knew nothing of the real situation. I did not wish to see any girl. I felt that no such intermediary would answer in a case like this, nor did I choose to trust Miss Porter. Yet to Miss Porter alone could I appeal. The sight of a doctor's gig standing at the side door gave me my first shock. Mrs. Ocampa was ill then, really ill. Yet if I came to make her better, I stood a resolute till I saw the doctor come out, then I walked boldly up and asked for Miss Porter. Just what Mrs. Carew had advised me not to do. Miss Porter came, she recognized me, but only to express her sorrow that Mrs. Ocampa was totally unfit to see any one today. Not if he brings news. News? I have news but of a delicate nature. I should like the privilege of imparting the same to Mrs. Ocampa herself. Impossible. Excuse me if I urge it. She cannot see you. The doctor who is just gone says that all hazards she must be kept quiet today. Won't Mr. Atwater do? Is it? Is it good news? That Mrs. Ocampa alone can say. See, Mr. Atwater I will call him. I have nothing to say to him. But let me advise you, leave it to Mrs. Ocampa. Take this paper up to her. It is only a sketch. And inform her that the person who drew it has something of importance to say either to her or to Mr. Atwater and let her decide which it shall be. You may, if you wish, mention my name. I do not understand. You hold my credentials, said I, and smiled. She glanced at the paper I had placed in her hand. It was a folded one, fastened something like an envelope. I cannot conceive she began. I did not scruple to interrupt her. Mrs. Ocampa has a right to the privilege of seeing what I have sketched there, I said, with what impressiveness I could, though my heart was heavy with doubt. Will you believe that what I ask is for the best and take the envelope to her? It may mean the ultimate restoration of her child. This paper? Yes, Miss Porter. She did not try to hide her in credulity. I did not see how a picture, yet you seem very much in earnest, and I know that she has confidence in you, she and Mr. Ocampa too. I will take it to her if you can assure me that good will come of it and no more false hopes to destroy the little courage she has left. I cannot promise that. I believe that she will wish to receive me and hear all that I have to say after seeing what that envelope contains. That is as far as I can honestly go. It does not satisfy me. If it were not for the nearness of Mr. Ocampa's return, I would have nothing to do with it. He must hear at Sandy Hook that some definite news has been received of his child. You are right, Miss Porter, he must. He idolized Gwendolyn. He is a man of strong feelings, very passionate and much given to follow the impulse of the moment. If his suspense is not ended at the earliest possible instant, the result may be such as I dare not contemplate. I know it. That is why I have pushed matters to this point. You will carry that up to her? Yes, and if. No ifs. Lay up before her where she sits and come away, but not beyond call.  Do not watch her as she unfolds this paper. Persons of her temperament do not like to have their emotions observed, and this will cause her emotion. That cannot be helped, Miss Porter. Sincerely and honestly I tell you that it is impossible for her best friends to keep her from suffering now. They can only strive to keep that suffering from becoming permanent. It is a hard task you have set me, complained the poor woman, but I will do what I can. Anything must be better for Mrs. Ocampa than the suspense that she is laboring under now. Remember, I enjoined, with the full force of my secret anxiety, that no I but hers must fall upon this drawing. Not that it would convey meaning to any one but herself, but because it is her affair and her affair only, and you are the woman to respect another person's affairs. She gave me a final scrutinizing look and left the room. God grant that I have made no mistake was the inward prayer with which I saw her depart. My fervency was sincere, I was myself frightened at what I had done, and what had I done? Sent her a sketch drawn by myself of Dr. Poole and of his office. If it recalled to her, as I felt it must, the remembrance of a certain memorable visit she had once paid there, she would receive me. When Miss Porter re-entered some fifteen minutes later, I saw that my hazardous attempt had been successful. Come, she said, but with no cheerful alacrity, rather with an air of gloom. Was, was Mrs. Ocampa very much disturbed by what she saw? I fear so. She was half asleep when I went in, dreaming as it seemed, and pleasantly. It was cruel to disturb her. Indeed, I had not the heart, so I just laid the folded paper near her hand and waited, but not too near, not within sight of her face. A few minutes later, in terminable minutes to me, I heard the paper rattle, but I did not move. I was where she could see me, so she knew that she was not alone, and presently I caught the sound of a strange noise from her lips, then a low cry, then the quick inquiry and sharper and more preemptory tones than I had ever heard from her before. Where did this come from? Who has dared to send me this? I advanced quickly. I told her about you and your desire to see her.  That I regretted troubling her when she felt so weak, but that you promised revelations of some sort. At which I thought she grew very pale. Are you quite convinced that you have news of sufficient importance to warrant the expectations you have raised in her? Let me see her, I prayed. She made a sign, and we both left the room. Mrs. O'Kampa awaited me in her own boudoir on the second floor, as we went up the main staircase I was afforded short glimpses of room after room of varying richness and beauty, among them one so dainty and delicate in its coloring that I presumed to ask if it were that of the missing child. Miss Porter's look as she shook her head roused my curiosity. I should be glad to see her room, I said. She stopped, seemed to consider the matter for a moment, then advanced quickly, and, beckoning me to follow, led me to a certain door which she quietly opened. One look in my astonishment became apparent. The room before me, while large and sunny, was as simple I had almost said, as bare, as my sisters at home. No luxurious furnishings here, no draperies of silk and damask, no half-lights drawing richness from stained glass, no gleam of silver or sparkle of glass on bedecked dresser or carved mantle. Not even the tinted muslins I had seen in some nurseries, but a plain set of furniture on a plain carpet, with but one real object of adornment within the four walls. That was a picture of the Madonna opposite the bed, and that was beautiful. But the frame was of the cheapest, a simple band of oak. Catching Miss Porter's eye as we quietly withdrew, I ventured to ask whose taste this was. The answer was short, and had a decided ring of disapproval in it. Her mother's, Mrs. Ocampa, believes in simple surroundings for children. Yet she dressed Gwendolyn like a princess. Yes, for the world's eye, but in her own room she wore gingham aprons which effectively covered up her ribbons and laces. The motive for all this was, in a way, evident to me, but somehow what I had just seen did not add to my courage for the coming interview. We stopped at the remotest door of this long hallway. As Miss Porter opened it, I summoned up all my nerve, and the next moment found myself standing in the presence of the imposing figure of Mrs. Ocampa, drawn up in the embouchure of a large window overlooking the Hudson. It was the same window, doubtless, in which she had stood two nights before and a day, watching for some sign from the boats engaged in the dragging of the riverbed. Her back was to me, and she seemed to find it difficult to break away from her fixed attitude.  When she did, I stood appalled. Not a vestige of color was to be seen on the cheek, lip, or brow. She was the beautiful Mrs. Ocampa still, but the heart which had sent the hues of life to her features was beating slow. Slow, and the effect was heart breaking to one who had seen her in her prime, and the full glory of her beauty as wife and mother. Pardon, I faltered out, bowing my head, as if before some powerful rebuke, though her lips were silent and her eyes pleading rather than accusing. Truly I had ventured far in daring to recall to this woman an hour which at this miserable time she preferably would have given her life to forget. Pardon, I repeated, with an even more humble intonation than before, for she did not speak and I hardly knew how to begin the conversation. Still, she said nothing, and at last I found myself forced to break the unbearable silence by some definite remark. I have presumed I therefore continued advancing but a step toward her, who made no advance at all, to send you a hurried sketch of one who says he knows you, that you might be sure I was not one of the many eager but irresponsible men who offer help in your great trouble, without understanding your history or that of the little one who's seemingly unaccountable disappearance all are seeking a clue. My history! The word seemed forced from her, but no change in eye or look accompanied them, nor could I catch a motion of her lips when she presently added in a faraway tone inexpressibly affecting. Her history! Did he bid you say that? Dr. Poole, he has given me no commands other than to find the child. I am not here as an agent of his. I am here in Mr. Ocampa's interest and your own, with some more knowledge, a little more knowledge than others have, perhaps, to aid me in the business of recovering this child. Madam, the police are seeking her in the holes and slums of the great city and at the hands of desperate characters who make a living out of the terrors and griefs of the rich. But this is not where I should look for Guindolino Ocampa. I should look nearer, just as you have looked nearer, and I should use means which I am sure have not commended themselves to the police. These means you can doubtless put in my hands. A mother knows many things in connection with her child, which she neither thinks to impart nor would, under any ordinary circumstances, give up, especially to a stranger. I am not a stranger. You have seen me in Mr. Ocampa's confidence. Will you then pardon me if I ask what may strike you as impertinent questions, but which may lead to the discovery of the motive, if not to the method of the little one's abduction? I do not understand, she was trying to shake off her apathy. I feel confused, sick, almost like one dying. How can I help? Haven't I done everything? I believe that she strayed to the river and drowned. I still believe her dead. Otherwise we should have news, real news, and we don't. We don't. The intensity with which she uttered the last two words brought a line of red into her gasping lips. She was becoming human, and for a minute I could not help drawing a comparison between her and her friend Mrs. Carew, as the latter had just appeared to me in her little hefty-nuded house on the other side of the hedge-row. Both beautiful, but owing their charms to quite different sources I surveyed this woman, white against the pale green of the curtain before which she stood, and imperceptibly, but surely the glowing attractions of the gay-hearted widow, who had found a child to love, faded before the cold loveliness of this bereaved mother, one with suffering and alive with terrors of whose depths I could judge from the clutch with which she still held my little sketch. Meanwhile I had attempted some kind of answer to Mrs. Ocampa's heart-rending appeal. We do not hear, because she was not taken from you simply for the money her return would bring. Indeed, after hours of action and considerable thinking, I am beginning to doubt if she was taken for money at all. Can you not think of some other motive? Do you not know of someone who wanted the child from? Love, let us say? Love. Did her lips frame it, or did I see it in her eyes? Certainly I heard no sound, yet I was conscious that she was repeating the word in her mind if not aloud. I know I have startled you, I pursued, but pardon me, I cannot help my presumption. I must be personal. I must even go so far as to probe the wound I have made. You have a claim to Gwendolyn, not to be doubted, not to be gain-said. But isn't there someone else who is conscious of possessing certain claims also? I do not allude to Mr. Ocampa. You mean some relative, aunt, cousin? She was fully human now and keenly alert. Mr. Rathbone, perhaps? No, Mrs. Ocampa, none of these. Then as the paper rattled in her hand, and I saw her eyes fall in terror on it, I said as calm and respectfully as I could. You have a secret, Mrs. Ocampa, that secret I share. The paper trembled from her clasp and fell fluttering downward. I pointed at it and waited until our eyes met, possibly that I might give her some encouragement from my look if not from my words. I was a boy in Dr. Poole's employ some five years ago, and one day I paused. She had made me a supplicating gesture. Shall I not go on, I finally asked. Give me a minute, was her low entreaty.  I learned it by accident I went on when I saw her eye turning again on mine. On a certain night six years ago I was in the office behind an old curtain. You remember the curtain hanging at the left of the doctor's table over that break in the bookshelves? I had no business there. I had been meddling with things which did not belong to me, and when I heard the doctor's step at the door I was glad to shrink into this refuge and wait for an opportunity to escape. It did not come very soon. First he had one patient then another. The last one was you. I heard your name and caught a glimpse of your face as you went out. It was a very interesting story, you told him. I was touched by it though I hardly understood. Oh, oh! She was swaying from side to side swaying so heavily that I instinctively pushed her toward a chair. Sit, I prayed, you are not strong enough for this excitement. She glanced at me vaguely, shook her head, but made no move toward accepting the proffered chair. She submitted, however, when I continued to press it upon her, and I felt less abrut and hard hearted monster when I saw her sitting with folded hands before me. I bring this up, said I, that you may understand what I mean when I say that someone else, another woman, in fact, may feel her claim upon this child greater than yours. You mean the real mother? Is she known? The doctor swore. I do not know the real mother. I only know that you are not. That to win some toleration from your mother-in-law, to make sure of your husband's lasting love, you won the doctor over to a deception which secured a seeming heir to the acampas. Whose child was given you is doubtless known to you? No, no! I stared at her aghast. What, you do not know? No, I did not wish to, nor was she ever to know me or my name. Then this hope has also failed. I thought that in this mother we might find the child of doctor. CHAPTER 18 You look as if, as if. I had studiously avoided looking at her while these last few words passed between us. But as the silence which followed this final outburst continued, I felt forced to glance her way if only to see what my next move should be. I found her gazing straight at me, with a bright spot on either cheek, looking as if seared there by a red- hot iron.   No, I saw no reason. Did you never? When you saw how completely my husband was deceived, how fortunes were bequeathed to Gwendolyn, gifts lavished on her, her small self made almost an idol of, because all of our friends, all our relatives, saw in her a true acumpa, think it wicked to hold your peace, and let this all go on as if she were the actual offspring of my husband and myself? No. I may have wondered at your happiness. I may have thought of the consequences, if ever he found out. But I dared not go on. The quick, the agonizing nerve of her grief and suffering had been touched, and I myself quailed at the result. Stemmering some excuse I waited for her soundless anguish to subside, then, when I thought she could listen, completed my sentence by saying, I did not allow my thoughts to stray quite so far, Mrs. Acumpa. Not till my knowledge of your secret promised to be of use did I let it rise to any proportion in my mind. I had too much sympathy for your qualities. I have today. This hint of comfort, perhaps, from the only source which could afford her any, seemed to move her. Do you mean that you are my friend, she cried, that you would help me, if any help were possible, to keep my secret and, and my husband's love? I did not know how to dash the first spark of hope I had seen in her from the beginning of this more than painful interview. To avoid it, I temporized a trifle and answered with ready earnestness. I would do much, Mrs. Acumpa, to make the consequences of your act as ineffective as possible and still be true to the interests of Mr. Acumpa. If that child can be found, you wish that. You loved her? Oh, yes, I loved her. There was no mistaking the wistfulness of her tone. Too well. Far too well. My husband, more. If you can find her, that is the first thing, isn't it? Yes. It was a faint rejoinder. I looked at her again. You do not wish her found, I suddenly declared. She started, rose to her feet, then suddenly sat again as if she felt that she could not stand. What makes you say that?  How can you say that? My husband loves her. I love her. She is our own child. If not by birth, by every tie which endears a child to a parent. Has that wicked man? Dr. Poole, I put in, for she stopped, gasping. Yes, Dr. Poole, whom I wished to God I had never seen. Has he told you any such lies as that, the man who swore? I put out my hand to calm her. I feared for her reason if not for her life. Be careful, I enjoined.  Then as I saw she would be answered, I replied to the questions still alive in her face. No, Dr. Poole has not talked of it. I saw it in your own manner, madam, it or something else. Perhaps it was something else, another secret which I have not shared. She moistened her lips and placed her two hands on the knobs of the chair in which she sat, leaning passionately forward. Who could say she was cold now? Who could see anything but a feeling heart in this woman, beautiful beyond all precedent in her passion and woe? It is, it was, a secret. I have to confess to the abnormal. The child did not love me, has never loved me. Lavish as I have been in my affection in caresses, she has never done ought but endure them. Though she believes me her own mother, she has shrunk from me with all the might of her nature from the very first. It was God's punishment for the lie by which I strove to make my husband believe himself the Father, which in God's providence he was not. I have borne it, but my life has been a living hell. It was that you saw in my face. Nothing else. I was bound to believe her. The child had made her suffer, but she was bent upon recovering her, of course. I dared not contemplate any other alternative. Her love for her husband precluded any other desire on her part. And so I admitted, when after a momentary survey of the task yet before me I ventured to remark, then we find ourselves once more, at the point from which we started. Where shall we look for his child, Mrs. Ocampa? Perhaps it would aid us in deciding this question, if you told me, sincerely told me, why you had such a strong belief in Gwendolyn's having been drowned in the river. You did believe this, I saw you at the windows. You are not an actress like your friend. You expected to see her body drawn from those waters.  Why? She crept a step nearer to me, her tones growing low and husky. Don't you see? I thought that to escape me she might have leapt into the water. She was capable of it. Gwendolyn had a strong nature. The struggle between duty and repulsion made Havok even in her infantile breast. Besides, we had had a scene that morning, a secret scene in which she showed absolute terror of me. It broke my heart, and when she disappeared in that mysterious way, and one of her shoes was found on the slope, what was I to think but that she had chosen to end her misery? This child, this babe I had loved as my own flesh and blood in the river, where she had been forbidden to go. Suicide by a child of six? You gave another reason for your persistent belief at the time, Mrs. Okampa. Was I to give this one? No, no one could expect you to do that, even if there had been no secret to preserve, and the child had been your own. But the child did not go to the river. You are convinced of that now, are you not? Yes. Where then did she go, or rather to what place was she taken? Somewhere near, somewhere within easy reach, for the alarm soon rose, and then she could not be found. Mrs. Okampa, I am going to ask you an apparently trivial and inconsequential question. Was Gwendolyn very fond of sweets?   Any which she could have got at, or the nurse had given her? There were the confections brought by the caterer, none other that I know of. I do not indulge her much in sweets. Was there anything peculiar about these confections, either in taste or appearance? I didn't taste them. In appearance they were mostly round and red with a branded cherry inside. Why, sir, why do you ask? What have these miserable lumps of sugar to do with Gwendolyn? Madam, do you recognize this? I took from my pocket the crushed mass of sugar and fruit I had picked up from the musty cushions of the old sofa in the walled-up room of the bungalow. She took it and looked up, staring. It is one of them, she cried. Where did you get it? You look as if, as if. I had come upon a clue to Gwendolyn, Madam, I believe I have. This candy has been held in a hot little hand. Miss Graham or one of the girls must have given it to her as she ran through the dining-room, or across the veranda on her way to the bungalow. She did not eat it offhand. She evidently fell asleep before eating it, but she clutched it very tight, only dropping it, I judge, when her muscles were quite relaxed in sleep. And then, not far, the folds of her dress caught it, for... What are you telling me? The interruption was sudden and imperative. I saw Gwendolyn asleep. She held a string in her hand, but no candy, and if she did... Did you examine both hands, Madam? Think. Great issues hang on a right settlement of this fact. Can you declare that she did not have this candy in one of her little hands? No, I cannot declare that. Then I shall always believe she did, and this same sweet-meat, this morsel from the table set for your guests on the afternoon of the sixteenth of this month, I found last night in the disused portion of the bungalow walled up by Mr. O'Cumpa's father, but made accessible since by an opening led into the floor from the cellar. This ladder I was enabled to reach by means of a trapdoor concealed under the rug in the open part of that same building. I... I am all confused. Say that again, she pleaded, starting once more to her feet, but this time without meeting my eyes. In the disused part of the bungalow? How came you there? No one ever goes there. It is a forbidden place. The child has been there, and lately. Oh! Her fingers began to tremble and twist themselves together. You have something more than this to tell me. Gwendolyn has been found, and... Her looks became uncertain and wondered, as I thought, toward the river. She has not been found, but the woman who carried her into that place will soon be discovered. Oh! Why? I had risen by this time and could answer her on a level, and face to face. Because the trail of her steps leads straight along the cellar floor, we have but to measure these footprints. And what? What? We find the abductor. A silence during which one long breath issued from her lips. Was it a man's or a woman's steps? She finally asked. A woman's daintily shod, a woman about the size of... Who? Why do you play with my anguish? Because I hate to mention the name of a friend. Ah! What do you know of my friends? Not much. I happen to meet one of them, and as she is a very fine woman with exquisitely shod feet, I naturally think of her. What do you mean? Her hand was on my arm, her face close to mine. Speak, speak the name. Mrs. Carew, I had purposely refrained up to this moment from bringing this lady, even by a hint, into the conversation. I did it now under an inner protest. But I had not dared to leave it out. The footprints I alluded to were startlingly like those left by her in other parts of the cellar floor. Besides, I felt at my duty to see how Mrs. Ocampa bore this name, notwithstanding my almost completely restored confidence in its owner. She did not bear it well. She flushed and turned quickly from my side, walking away to the window, where she again took up her stand. You would have shown better taste by not following your first impulse, she remarked. Mrs. Carew's footsteps in that old cellar?  Not at all. Mrs. Carew's feet have been all over that cellar floor. She accompanied me through it last night, at the time I found this crushed bombon. I could see that Mrs. Ocampa was amazed, well nigh confounded, but her manner altered from that moment. Tell me about it. And I did. I related the doubts I had felt concerning the completeness of the police investigation as regarded the bungalow, my visit there at night with Mrs. Carew, and the discoveries we had made. Then I alluded again to the footprints and the important clue they offered. But the child, she interrupted, where is the child? If taken there, why wasn't she found there? Don't you see that your conclusions are all wild, incredible? A dream, an impossibility. I go by the signs, I replied. There seems to be nothing else to go by. And you want, you intend, to measure those steps? That is why I am here, Mrs. Ocampa, to request permission to continue this investigation and to ask for the key to the bungalow. Mrs. Carew's is no longer available, or rather I should prefer to proceed without it. With sudden impulse she advanced rapidly towards me. What is Mrs. Carew doing this morning? she asked. Preparing for departure, she is quite resolved to sail to-day. Do you wish to see her? Do you wish her confirmation of my story? I think she will come if you send for her. There is no need. This, after an instance hesitation, I have perfect confidence in Mrs. Carew, and in you too, she added, and with what she meant for a kind look. She was by nature without coquetry, and this attempt to please, in the midst of an overwhelming distress absorbing all her facilities, struck me as the most pitiful effort I had ever seen. My feeling for her made it very hard for me to proceed. Then may I go on? I said. Of course, of course. I don't know where the key is. I shall have to give orders. You will wait a few minutes? Somewhere in one of the enjoining rooms while I look up Mr. Atwater? Certainly. She was trembling, feverish, impatient. Shall I not go look up Mr. Atwater for you? I asked. No, I am feeling better. I can go by myself. In another moment she had left the room, having forgotten her own suggestion that I should await her return in some adjoining apartment. CHAPTER XIX FRIENDSY FIVE MINUTES. Ten minutes elapsed, and I became greatly impatient. I walked the floor. I stared from the window. I did everything I could think of to pass away these unendurable moments of suspense with credible self-possession, but I failed utterly. As the clock ticked off the quarter-hour and then the half, I grew not only impatient but seriously alarmed, and flinging down the book I had taken up as a last resort, stepping from the room, in the hope of coming across someone in the hall whom I could interrogate. But the house seemed strangely quiet, and when I had walked the full length of the hall without encountering either maid or mistress, I summoned up the courage to return to the room I had left and rang the bell. No answer, though I waited long for it. Thinking that I had not pressed the button hard enough, I made a second attempt, but again there was no answer. Was anything amiss? Had she? My thought did not complete itself. In sudden apprehension of I knew not what, I dashed from the room and made my way downstairs without further ceremony. The unnatural stillness which had attracted my attention above was repeated on the floor below. No one in the rooms, no one in the passages. Disturbed as I had not been yet, by anything which had occurred in connection with this harrowing affair, I leaped to the nearest door and stepped out on the lawn. My first glance was toward the river. All was as usual there, with my worst fears dispelled, but still a prey to doubts for which as yet I had no name. I moved toward the kitchen windows, expecting of course to find someone there who would explain the situation to me. But not ahead appeared to my call. The kitchen, too, was deserted. This is not chance, I involuntarily exclaimed, and was turning toward the stables, when I perceived a child. The son of one of the gardeners crossing the lawn at a run and hailing him, asked where everybody had gone, that the house seemed deserted. He looked back, but kept on running, shouting as he did so. I guess they're all down at the bungalow. I'm going there. Men are digging up the cellar. Mrs. Compass says she's afraid Miss Gwendolyn's body is buried there.  So this was what I had done. Driven her to frenzy, roused her imagination to such a point that she saw her darling, always her darling even if another woman's child, lying under the clay across which I had attempted simply to prove that she had been carried. Or... No, I would not think that. A detective of my experience, outwitted by this stricken half-dead woman who I had trembled to see try to stand upon her feet? Impossible. Yet the thought brought the blood to my cheek. Digging up the bungalow cellar, that meant destroying those footprints before I had secured a single impression of the same, I should have roused her curiosity only, not her terror. Now all might be lost unless I could arrive in time to... To do what? Or to the work-stopped? With what face could I do that with her standing by in all the authority of motherhood, frenzied motherhood, seeking the possible body of her child? My affair certainly looked dubious. Yet I started for the bungalow like the rest, and on a run, too. Perhaps providence would favour me, and some expedience suggest itself, by which I might still save the clue upon which so many hopes had hung. The excitement which had now drawn every person on the place in the one direction was at its height as I burst through the thicket into the path running immediately about the bungalow. Those who could get in at the door had done so, filling the room whence Gwendolyn had disappeared, with awestruck men and shattering women. Some had been allowed to descend through the yawning trap-door, down which all were endeavouring to peer. And, fortified by this fact, I armed myself with an appearance of authority despite my sense of presumption, and pushed and worked my own way to these steps, saying that I had come to aid Mrs. Ocampa, whose attention I declared I had been the first to direct to this place. Struck with my manner, if not with my argument, they yielded to my importunity and allowed me to pass down. The stroke of the spade and the harsh voice of the men directing the work greeted my disquieted ears. With a bound I cleared the last half-dozen steps, and a lighting on the cellar-bottom was soon able, in spite of the semi-darkness, to look about me and get some notion of the scene. A dozen men were working the full core of gardeners without doubt, and a single glance suffice to show me that such of the surface, as had not been upturned by their spades, had been harried by their footsteps. Useless now to promulgate my carefully formed theory with any hope of proof to substantiate it. The crushed bon-bon, the piled-up boxes in the freshly sod-hole, were enough without doubt to establish the fact that the child had been carried into the walled-up room above, but the link which would have fixed the identity of the person, so carrying her, was gone from my chain of evidence forever. She who should have had the greatest interest in establishing this evidence, was leaning on the arm of Miss Porter and directing, with wavering finger and wild air, the movements of the men, who, in a frenzy caught up from her own, dug here and dug there, as that inexorable finger pointed. Sobs choked Miss Porter, but Mrs. O'Cumple was beyond all such signs of grief. Her eyes moved, her breasts heaved. Now and then a confused command left her lips, but that was all. Yet to me she was absolutely terrifying, and it took all the courage left from my disappointment for me to move so as to attract her attention. When I saw that I had succeeded in doing this, I regretted the impulse which had led me to break into her mood. The change which my sudden appearance caused in her was too abrupt, too startling. I feared the effects, then put up my hand in silent deprecation, as her lips essayed to move in what might be a very disturbing command. If she heeded it, I cannot say. What she said was this. It's the child. I'm looking for the child. She was brought here. You proved that she was brought here. Then why don't we find her, or her little innocent body? I did not attempt an answer. I dared not. I merely turned away into the corner, where I should be out of the way of the men. A thought was rising in my mind, a thought which might have led to some definite action if her voice had not risen shrilly and with a despairing utterance in these words. Useless! It is not here she will be found. I was mad to think it. Pull up your spades and go. A murmur of relief from one end of the cellar to the other, and every spade was drawn out of the ground. I could have told you, ventured one more hearty than the rest, that there was no use disturbing this old clay for any such purpose. Anyone could see that no spade has been at work here before in years. I said that I was mad. She repeated and waved the men away. Slowly they retreated with clattering spades into heavy tread. The murmur which greeted them above slowly died out, and the bungalow was deserted by all but our three selves. When quite sure of this I turned and Miss Porter's eyes met mine with a reproachful glance, easy enough for me to understand. I will go too, whispered Mrs. O'Cumpa. Oh, this has been like losing my darling for the second time. Real grief is unmistakable. Recognizing the heartfelt tone in which those words were uttered, I recurred to the idea of frenzy with all the sympathy her situation called for. Yet I felt that I could not let her leave before we had come to some understanding. But how express myself? How say here and now in the presence of a sympathetic but unenlightened third party, what it would certainly be difficult enough for me to utter to herself in the privacy of that secluded apartment in which we had met and talked before our confidence was broken into by this impetuous act of hers. Not seeing at the moment any natural way out of my difficulties I stood in painful confusion, conscious of Miss Porter's eyes, and also conscious that unless some miracle came to my assistance I must henceforth play but a sorry figure in this affair. When my eyes, which had fallen to the ground, chanced upon a morsel of paper so insignificant in size and of such doubtful appearance, that the two ladies must have wondered to see me stoop with ill-concealed avidity, pick it up and place it in my pocket. Mrs. Ocampa, whose false strength was fast leaving her, now muttered some words which were quite unintelligible to me, though they caused Miss Porter to make me emotion very expressive of a dismissal. I did not accept it as such, however, without making one effort to regain my advantage. At the foot of the steps I paused and glanced back at Mrs. Ocampa.  Again her pitiable and humiliating position appealed to me, and it was with some indication of feeling that I finally said, Am I not to have an opportunity of finishing the conversation so unhappily interrupted, Mrs. Ocampa? I am not satisfied, and I do not believe you can be, with the partial disclosures I had then made. Afford me, I pray, a continuation of that interview, if only to make plain to me your wishes. Otherwise I may fall into some mistake, say or do something, which I might regret, for matters cannot stand where they are. You know that, do you not, madam? Adelaide, go, go, this, she said to Miss Porter. I must have a few words with Mr. Trevitt. I have forgotten what I owe him in the frenzy which possessed me. Do you wish to talk to him here, asked the lady, with very marked anxiety? No, no, it is too cold, too dark. I think I could walk to Mrs. Caruse. Will you join me there, Mr. Trevitt? I bowed, but as she passed near me in going out, I whispered in her ear, I should suggest that we hold our talk anywhere but at Mrs. Caruse's house, since she is liable to be the chief suspect in our conversation. Now? Now, more than ever, her share in the child's disappearance was not eliminated or affected in any way by the destruction of her footprints. I will go back to the house. I will see him in my own room, Mrs. Ocampa suddenly announced, to her greatly disturbed companion. Mr. Trevitt will follow in a few minutes. I must have time to think, to compose myself, to decide. She was evidently thinking aloud, anxious to save her from any self-betrayal. I hastily interrupted her, saying quietly, I will be at your boudoir door in a half hour from now. I myself have something to think of in the interim. Be careful! It was Miss Porter who stopped to utter this word in my ear. Be very careful, I entreat. Her heart strings are strained almost to breaking. I answered with a look. She could not be more conscious of this than I was. CHAPTER 20 What do you know? I was glad of that half hour. I, too, wanted a free moment in which to think and examine the small scrap of paper I had picked up from this cellar floor. In the casual glance I had given it, it had seemed to offer me a fresh clue, quite capable of replacing the old one, and I did not change my mind on a second examination. The shape, the hue, the few words written on it, even the musty smell pervading it, all going to prove it to be one possible link, which could reunite the chain whose continuity I believed to be gone forever. Rejoicing in my good luck, yet conscious of still moving in very troubled waters, I cast a glance in the direction of Mrs. Carew's house, from the door of the bungalow whence I had seen Mrs. Okampa depart, and asked myself why Mrs. Carew, of all persons in the vicinity, had been the only one to hang back from this scene of excitement. It was not like her to hide herself in such a crisis. How invariably she had followed me in each and every visit I had paid here. And though I remembered all her reasons for preoccupation, her absence under the present conditions bore an aspect of guilt which sent my mind working in a direction which was not entirely new to me, but which I had not as yet resolutely faced. Guilt! The word recalled that other and similar one uttered by Mr. Rathbone in that adventure which had impressed me as so unreal, and still held its place in my mind as something I had dreamed. He was looking up when he said it, up the hill, up toward Mrs. Carew's house. He had struck his own breast, but he had looked up, not down. And though I had naturally associated the word he had used with himself, and Miss Graham with a womanly intuition had supplied me with an explanation of the same which was neither farfetched nor unnatural, yet all through this day of startling vicissitudes and unimaginable interviews, faint doubts, bidden and unbidden, had visited my mind which at this moment culminated in what I might call the irresistible question as to whether he might not have had in mind someone nearer and dearer than himself when he uttered that accusing word. Her position, as I saw it now, did not make this supposition too monstrous for belief. That is, if she secretly loved this man who did not dare, or was too burdened with responsibility to woo her. And who can penetrate a woman's mind? To give him possibly without his knowledge what everyone who knew him declared him to stand in special need of, money and relief from too exacting work, might have seemed motive enough to one of her warm and impulsive temperament for eliminating the child she cared for, but not as she cared for him. It was hard to think it, it would be harder yet to act upon it, but the longer I stood there brooding, the more I felt my conviction grow that from her and from her alone we should yet obtain definite traces of the missing child if only Mrs. Ocampa would uphold me in the attempt. What would Mrs. Ocampa do this? I own that I had my doubts. Some hidden cause or instinct which I had not been able to reach, though I had plunged deep into the most galling secrets of her life, seemed to stand in the way of her full acceptance of the injury I believed her to have received from Mrs. Carew, or rather, in the way of her public acknowledgment of it. Though she would feign have this up-turning of the bungalow cellar pass for an active frenzy, I could not quite bring myself to look upon it as such, since taken a final observation of its condition. Though her professed purpose had been to seek the body of her child, the spades had not gone deeper than their length. It had been harrowing, not digging, she had ordered, and harrowing meant nothing more than an obliteration of the footprints which I had ministered with, comparing with those of Mrs. Carew. Why this show of consideration to one she might call a friend, but who could hold no comparison in her mind with the safety or recovery of the child which, if not hers, was the beloved object of her husband's heart in only too deeply cherished by herself? Did she fear her charming neighbor? Was the bond between them founded on something besides love? And did she apprehend that a discovery of Mrs. Carew's connection with Gwendolyn's disappearance would only precipitate her own disgrace, and open up to public recognition the false relationship she held toward the little heiress? Hard questions these, but ones which must soon be faced and answered, for wretched as was Mrs. O'Cumpa's position, and truly as I sympathized with her misery, I was none the less resolved to force such acknowledgment from her as would allow me to approach Mrs. Carew with a definite accusation such as even that daring spirit could not withstand. Thus resolved, and resisting all temptation to hazard an interview with the latter lady before I had seen Mrs. O'Cumpa again, I made my way up slowly through the grounds and entered by the side door, just as my watch told me that the half-hour of my waiting was over. Miss Porter was in an upper hall, but turned aside at my approach, with a meaning gesture in the direction of the Boudoir. I thought that her eyes looked red, certainly she was trembling very much, and with this poor preparation for an interview before which the strongest and most experienced man might quail, I advanced for the second time that morning to the door, behind which the distracted mother awaited me. If I knocked I do not remember it. I rather think she opened the door for me herself upon hearing my step in the hall. At all events we were soon standing face to face again, and the battle for our two wills, for it would be nothing less now, had begun. She was the first to speak.  Do you mean to publish my shame to the world? I see decision in your face. Does it mean that? Tell me, does it mean that? No, madam, far be it from me to harbour such an intention, unless driven to it by the greatest necessity. Your secret is your own. My only reason for betraying my knowledge of it was in the hope I cherished of its affording some clue to the identity of Gwendolyn's abductor. It has not done so yet. May never do so. Then let us leave that topic and return to the clue offered by the carrying off of that child into the long closed room back of the bungalow. Mrs. Ocampa, intentionally or unintentionally, the proof upon which I relied for settling the identity of the person so carrying her, has been destroyed. With a flush which her seemingly bloodless condition made perfectly startling, she drew back breaking into wild disclaimers. I know, I fear, I was too wild, too eager, I thought only of what might lie under that floor. In a half foot of earth, madam, spades did not enter any deeper. With a sudden access of courage born possibly of her despair, she sought neither to attempt denial or palliate the fact. And if this was my intention, though I don't acknowledge it, you must recognise my reason. I do not believe, you cannot make me believe, that Gwendolyn was carried into that room by Mrs. Carew. But I could see that you believed it, and to save her the shame of such an accusation, and all that might follow from it, I, oh, Mr. Trevitt, you do not think this possible. Do you know so little of the impulses of a mind bewildered as mine has been by intolerable suffering? I can understand madness, and I am willing to think that you were mad just then, especially as no harm has been done, and I can still accuse Mrs. Carew of a visit to that room, with the proof in my hand. What do you mean? The steady voice was faltering, but I could not say with what emotion. Hope for herself? Doubt of me? Fear for her friend? It might have been any of these. It might have been all. Is there a footprint left, then? You say proof. Do you mean proof? A detective does not use that word lightly. You may be sure that I would not, I returned. Then in answer to the appeal of her whole attitude and expression, no, there were no footprints left, but I came upon something else, which I have sufficient temerity to believe will answer the same purpose. Remember that my object is first to convince you, and afterwards Mrs. Carew, that it will be useless for her to deny that she had been in that room. Once that is understood the rest will come easy, for we know the child was there, and it is not a place she could have found alone. The proof? She had no strength for more than that. The proof, Mr. Trevitt, the proof? I put my hand in my pocket, then drew it out again, empty, making haste, however, to say, Mrs. Ocampa, I do not want to distress you, but I must ask you a few questions first. Do you know the secret of that strangely divided room? Only in a general way Mr. Ocampa has never told me. You have not seen the written account of it? No. Nor given into Mrs. Carew's hand such an account? No. Mrs. Carew's duplicity was assuming definite proportions. Yet there is such an account and I have listened to a reading of it. You? Yes, madam. Mrs. Carew read it to me last night in her own house. She told me it came to her from your hands. You see, she is not always particular in her statements. A lift of the hand, whether in depreciation or appeal I could not say, was all the answer this received. I saw that I must speak with the utmost directness. This account was in the shape of a letter on several sheets of paper. These sheets were very old and were torn as well as discolored. I had them in my hand and noticed that a piece was lacking from one of them. Mrs. Ocampa, are you ready to repeat that Mrs. Carew did not receive this old letter from you or obtain it in any way you know of from the house we are in now? I'd rather not be forced to contradict Mrs. Carew, was the low reply, but injustice to you I must acknowledge that I hear of this letter for the first time. God grant, but what can any old letter have to do with this agonizing question before us? I am not strong, Mr. Trevitt. I am suffering. Do not confuse me and burden me, I pray. Pardon, but I am not saying one unnecessary word. These old sheets, a secret from the family, did not come from this house. Once then did they come into Mrs. Carew's possession. I see you have forestalled my answer, and if you will now glance at this end of paper, picked up by me in your presence from the cellar floor, across which we both know that her footsteps have passed, you will see that it is a proof capable of convicting her of the fact. I held out the scrap I now took from my pocket. Mrs. Ocampa's hand refused to take it or her eyes to consult it. Nevertheless I still held it out. Pray, read the few words you will find there, I urged. They are in explanation of the document itself, but they will serve to convince you that the letter to which they were attached and which is now in Mrs. Carew's hand came from that decaying room. No, no. The gesture which accompanied this exclamation was more than one of refusal. It was that of repulse. I cannot see. I do not need to. I am convinced. Pardon me, but that is not enough, Mrs. Ocampa. I want you to be certain. Let me read these words. The story they prefaced is unknown to you. Let it remain so. All I need to tell you about is this. That it was written by Mr. Ocampa's father, he who raised this partition, and who is undoubted author of these lines. Remember that they headed the letter.  If in time to come any man reads these lines he will know why I pulled down the encircling wall built by my father and why I raised a new one across this end of the pavilion. Mrs. Ocampa's eyes opened wide in terror. Blood, she repeated, a ceiling oozing blood. An old superstition, Mrs. Ocampa, quite unworthy of your attention at the moment. Do not let your mind dwell upon the portion of what I have read, but on the word room. Parish with the room. We know what room was meant. There can be but one. I have myself seen the desk from which these sheets were undoubtedly taken, and for them to be in the hand of a certain person, argues, Mrs. Ocampa's hand went up in dissuasion, but I relentlessly finished. That she has been in that room. Are you more than convinced of this now? Are you sure? She did not need to make reply. Eyes and attitude spoke for her. But it was the look and attitude of despair, not hope. Evidently she had the very greatest reason to fear Mrs. Karoo, who possibly had her hard side as well as her charming one. To ease the situation I spoke, what was in both our minds, I see that you are sure. That makes my duty very plain, Mrs. Ocampa. My next visit must be upon Mrs. Karoo. The spirit which, from the beginning of this latter interview, had infused fresh strength into her feeble frame, seemed to forsake her at this simple declaration. Her whole form drooped, and the eyes which had rested on mine turned in their own way to the river. I took advantage of the circumstance. One who knows you well, who knows the child well, dropped the wrong shoe into the river. A murmur, nothing more, from Mrs. Ocampa's set lips. Could it? I do not say that it was. I don't see any reason why it should be. But could it have been Mrs. Karoo? Not a sound this time. Not a sound. She was down at the dock that night. Did you know it? A gesture, but whether of a scent or dissent, I could not tell. We know of no other person who was there but the men employed. What do you know?  Quit this torture.  Madam, I was confounded, and as I looked at her face, strained back in wild appeal, I was more than confounded. I was terrified. Madam, what does this mean? Are you—you? Lock the door, she cried. No one must come in here now. I have said so much that I must say more. Listen and be my friend. Oh, be my friend. Those were my footsteps you saw in the bungalow. It was I who carried Gwendolyn into that secret hole. CHAPTER XXI Had I suspected this? Had all my efforts for the last half hour been for the purpose of entrapping her into some such a vowel? I do not know. My own feelings at the time are a mystery to me.  I was not happy when I reached it. I felt no elation, scarcely any relief. It all seemed so impossible. She marked the signs of incredulity in my face and spoke up quickly, almost sharply. You do not believe me. I will prove the truth of what I say. Just wait, wait. And, running to a closet, she pulled out a drawer. Where was her weakness now? And brought from it a pair of soiled white slippers. If the house had been ransacked, she proceeded pantingly. These would have told their own tale. I was shocked when I saw their condition and kept my guests waiting till I changed them. Oh, they will fit the footprints! Her smile was ghastly. Softly she set the shoes down. Mrs. Caru helped me. She went for the child at night. Oh, we are in a terrible strait, we too, unless you will stand by us like a friend. And you will do that, won't you, Mr. Trevitt? No one else knows what I have just confessed, not even Dr. Poole, though he suspects me in ways I never dreamed of. Money shall not stand in the way. I have a fortune of my own now. Nothing shall stand in the way if you will have pity on Mrs. Caru and myself, and help us to preserve our secret. Madam, what secret? I pray you to make me acquainted with the whole matter in all its details before you ask my assistance. Then do you not know it? Not altogether, and I must know it altogether. First, what became of the child? She is safe and happy. You have seen her. You mention doing so just now? Harry? Harry! I rose before her in intense excitement. What a plot! I stood aghast at its daring adept the success it so nearly met with. I've had moments of suspicion, I admitted, after a short examination of this beautiful woman's face, for the marks of strength which her part in this plot seemed to call for. But they all vanished before Mrs. Caru's seemingly open manner, and the perfect boyishness of the child. Is she an actress too, Gwendolyn? Not when she plays boyish games like horse and Indian. She is only acting out her nature. She has no girl tastes. She is all boy, and it was by means of these instincts that Mrs. Caru won her.  And she promised her something else, that she should go to her father. Gwendolyn idolizes Mr. Ocampa. But I know, you wonder why if I loved my husband I should send away the one cherished object of his life. It is because our love was threatened by this very object. I saw nothing but death and chaos before me if I kept her. My husband adores that child, but he hates and despises a falsehood, and my secret was threatened by the one man who knows it, your Dr. Poole. My accomplice once, he declared himself ready to become my accuser if the child remained under the Ocampa roof one day after the date he fixed for her removal. Ah, I ejaculated with sudden comprehension of the full meaning of the scrawls I had seen in so many parts of the grounds. And by what right did he demand this? What excuse did he give you, his wish for money, immense money, old miser that he is? No, for money I could have given him. His motive is a less tangible one. He has scruples, he says, religious scruples following a change of heart. Oh, he was a cruel man to meet, determined, inexorable. I could not mover influence him. The proffer of money only hurt my cause. A fraud had been perpetrated, he said, and Mr. Ocampa must know it. Would I confess the truth to him myself? No. Then he would do so for me and bring proofs to substantiate his statements. I thought all was lost, my husband's confidence, his love, his pleasure even in the child. For it was his own blood that he loved in her, and her connection with his family, of whose prestige he has an exaggerated idea.  And he almost bade me kill, but refrained when the word had half left his lips, and changed it to a demand for the child's immediate removal from the benefits it enjoyed under false pretenses. And from this Mrs. Ocampa went on to relate how he had told her that Gwendolyn had inherited fortunes because she was believed to be an Ocampa. That not being an Ocampa she must never handle those fortunes winding up with some language as this. Manage it how you will, only relieve me from the oppression of feeling myself a party to the grossest of deceptions. Can not the child run away and be lost? I am willing to aid you in that, even to paying for her bringing up in some decent respectable way such as would probably have been her lot if you had not interfered to place her in the way of millions. It was a man thought, half-meant and apparently wholly impossible to carry out, without raising suspicions as damaging as confession itself. But it took an immediate hold upon the miserable woman he addressed, though she gave little evidence of it. For he proceeded to add in a harsh tone, that or immediate confession to your husband, with me by your side to substantiate your story. No slippery woman's tricks will go down with me. Fix the date here and now, and I promise to stand back and await the result in total silence. Dally with it by so much as an hour, and I am at your gates with a story that all must hear. Is it a matter of wonder that the stricken woman, without counsel and prohibited from the very nature of her secret from seeking counsel, uttered the first one that came to mind and went home to brood over her position, and planned how she could satisfy his demands with the least cost to herself, her husband, and the child? Mr. Ocampa was in Europe. This was her one point of comfort. What was done could be done in his absence, and this fact greatly minimized any risk she was likely to incur. When he returned he would find the house in mourning, for she had already decided within herself that only by apparent death could this child be safely robbed of her endowments as an Ocampa and an Eris. He would grieve, but his grief would lack the sting of shame, and so in course of time would soften into a lovely memory of one who had been as the living sunshine to him, and, like the sunshine, brief in its shining. Thus and thus only could she show her consideration for him. For herself no consideration was possible. It must always be her fate to know the child alive, yet absolutely removed from her. This was a sorrow capable of no alleviation, for Gwendolyn was passionately dear to her, all the dearer perhaps, because the mother thirst had never been satisfied, because she had held the cup in hand, but had never been allowed to drink. The child's future, how to rob her of all she possessed, yet secure her happiness and the prospect of an honorable estate. Ah, there was the difficulty, and one she quite failed to solve, till, in a paroxysm of terror and despair, after five sleepless nights, she took Mrs. Carew into her confidence and implored her aid. The free, resourceful, cheerful nature of the broader-minded woman saw through the difficulty at once. Give her to me, she cried. I love little children passionately, and have always grieved over my childless condition. I will take Gwendolyn, raise her, and fill her little heart so full of love, she will never miss the magnificence she had been brought to look upon as her birthright. Only I shall have to leave this vicinity, perhaps the country. And would you be willing, asked the poor mother, mother by right of many years of service, if not of blood? The answer broke her heart, though it was only a smile, but such a smile, confident, joyous, triumphant, the smile of a woman who had got her heart's wish, while she, she must henceforth live childless. So that was settled, but not the necessary ways and means of accomplishment, those came only with time. The two women had always been friends, so their frequent meetings in the Green Woodwa did not weaken a suspicion. A sudden trip to Europe was decided on by Mrs. Carew, and by degrees the whole plot was perfected. In her eyes it looked feasible enough, and they both anticipated complete success. Having decided that the scheme as planned by them could be best carried out in the confusion of a great entertainment, cards were sent out for the sixteenth, the date agreed upon by the doctor's office, as the one in which should see a complete change in Gwendolyn's prospects. It was also settled that on that same day Mrs. Carew should bring home from a certain small village in Connecticut, her nephew, who had lately been left an orphan. There was no deception about this nephew. Mrs. Carew had for some time supplied his needs, and paid for his board in the farmhouse where he had been left, and in the emergency which had just come up. She took care to publish to all her friends that she was going to bring him home and take him with her to Europe. Further, a market man and woman, with whom Mrs. Carew had had dealings for years, were persuaded to call at her house, shortly after three that afternoon, to take this nephew of hers by a circuitous and prolonged ride through the country to an institution in which she had had him entered under an assumed name. All this in one day. Meanwhile Mrs. Carew undertook to open with her own hands a passage from the cellar of the bungalow into the long-closed room behind the partition. This was to ensure a safe retreat for the child during the first search, that by no possibility could anything be found to contradict the testimony of the little shoe which Mrs. Ocampa proposed presenting to all eyes as found on the slope leading to the great burial place, the river. Otherwise the child might have been passed over to Mrs. Carew at once. All this being decided upon, each waited to perform the part assigned to her. Mrs. Carew in the fever of delight, for she was passionately devoted to Gwendolyn, and experienced nothing but rapture at the prospect of having this charming child ought to herself. Mrs. Ocampa, whose only recompense would be freedom from the threatening exposure which would cost her the only thing she prized, her husband's love, in a condition of cold dread, relieved only by the burning sense of the necessity of impressing upon the whole world, and especially upon Mr. Ocampa, an absolute belief in the child's death. This was her first care. To this her mind clung with an agony of purpose, which was the fittest preparation possible for the real display of feeling when the time came. But she forgot one thing. They both forgot one thing. That chance, or providence, might ordain that witness should be on the road below Homewood to prove that the child did not cross the track at the time of her disappearance. To them it seemed enough to plead the child's love for the water, her desire to be allowed to fish, the opportunity given her to escape, and, and the little shoes. Such short-sightedness in face of a great peril could be pardoned Mrs. Ocampa on the verge of delirium under her cold exterior. But Mrs. Carew should have taken this possibility into account, and would have done so probably, had she not been completely absorbed in the part she would be called upon to play, when the exchange of children should be made, and Gwendolyn be entrusted to her charge within a dozen rods of her own home. This she could dwell on with the whole force of her mind. This she could view in all its relations, and make such a study of it as to provide herself against all contingencies. But the obvious danger of a gang of men being placed just where they could serve as witness, in contradiction of the one fact upon which the whole plot was based, never even struck her imagination. The nursery governess whose heart was divided between her duty to the child, and her strong love of music, was chosen as their unconscious accomplice in this fraud. As the time for the great musicale approached, she was bidden to amuse Gwendolyn in the bungalow, with the understanding that if the child fell asleep she might lay her on the divan, and so far leave her as to take her place on the bench outside, where the notes of the solo singers could reach her. That Gwendolyn would fall asleep and fall asleep soon, the wretched mother well-new, for she had given her a safe but potent sleeping-draft, which could not fail to ensure a twelve-hours undisturbed somber to so healthy a child. The fact that the little one had shrunk more than ever from her attentions that morning both hurt and encouraged her, certainly it would make it easier for Mrs. Karoo to influence Gwendolyn. In her own mind, filled with terrible images of her husband's grief and her long perspective dissimilation, one picture rose in brilliant contrast to the dark one embodying her own miserable future, and that of the soon-to-be bereaved father. It was that of the perfect joy of the hungry-hearted child in the arms of the woman she loved best. It brought her cheer. It brought her anguish. It was a sav to her conscience and a mortal thrust in an already festering wound. She shut it from her eyes as much as possible, and so the hour came. We know the results, how far the scheme succeeded and whence its great failure arose. Gwendolyn fell asleep almost immediately on reaching the bungalow, and Mrs. Graham, dreaming no harm in having the most perfect confidence in Mrs. Ocampa, took advantage of the permission she had received, and slipped outside to sit on the bench and listen to the music. Presently Mrs. Ocampa appeared, saying that she had left her guests for a moment just to take a look at Gwendolyn and see if all were well with her. As she needed no attendance, Miss Graham might stay where she was, and Miss Graham did, taking a pleasure in the music which was the finest she had ever heard. Meanwhile Mrs. Ocampa entered the bungalow and, untying the child's shoes as she had frequently done before, when she found her asleep, she lifted her and carried her just as she was down the trap, the door of which she had previously raised. The darkness lurking in such places, a darkness which had rendered it so impenetrable by midnight, was relieved to some extent in daylight, by means of a little graded opening in the wall under the beams, so that her chief difficulty lay in holding up her long dress and sustaining the heavy child at the same time. But the exigency of the moment, and her apprehension lest Miss Graham should re-enter the bungalow before she could finish her task and escape, gave great precision to her movements, and in an incredible short space of time she had reached those musty precincts, which, if they should not prove the death of the child, would safely shelter her from every one's eye till the first excitement of her loss was over, and the conviction of her death by drowning, become a settled fact in every mind. Mrs. Ocampa's return was a flight. She had brought one of the little shoes with her concealed in a pocket she had made especially for it, in the trimmings of her elaborate gown. She found the bungalow empty, the trap still raised, and Miss Graham toward whom she cast a hurried look through the window, yet in her place, listening with enthralled attention to the great tenor upon whose magnificent singing Mrs. Ocampa had relied for the successful carrying out of what she and Mrs. Carew considered the most critical part of the plot. So far then all was well. She had but to drop the trap door carefully to its place, replace the corner of the carpet she had pulled up, push down with her foot the two or three nails she had previously loosened, and she would be quite at liberty to quit the place and return to her guests. But she found that this was not as easy as she had imagined. The clogs of a terrible, almost a criminal consciousness held back her steps. The stumble as she left the bungalow and stopped to catch her breath as if the oppression of the room in which she had emured her darling had infected the sunny air of this glorious day and made free breathing an impossibility. The weights on her feet were so palpable to her that she unconsciously looked down at them. This was how she came to notice the dust on her shoes. Alive to the story it told, she burst the spell which held her and made a bound to the house. Rushing to her room she shook her skirts and changed her shoes, and thus freed from all the connecting links with that secret spot, free entered among her guests as beautiful and probably as wretched a woman as the world contained that day. Yet as wretched as she could be, there were depths beneath these depths. If he should ever know, if he should ever come to look at her with horrified, even alienated eyes, that were the end, that would mean the river for her, the river which all so soon were to think had swallowed the little Gwendolyn. Was that Miss Graham coming? Was the stir she'd now heard outside the first indication of the hue and cry which would soon ring through the whole place and her shrinking heart as well? No, no, not yet. She could still smile, must smile, and smite her two glove-covered hands together in simulated applause of notes and tones she did not even hear. And no one noted anything strange in the smile or in that gracious bringing together of hands which, if any one had had the impulse to touch, but no one thought of doing that. A heart may bleed drop by drop to its death in our full sight without our expecting it, if the eye above it still beam with the natural brightness. And hers did that. She had always been called impassive. God be thanked that no warmth was expected from her and that no one would suspect the death she was dying if she did not cry out. But the moment came when she did cry out. Miss Graham entered, told her story, and all Mrs. Ocampa's pent-up agony burst its bounds in a scream which to others seemed but the natural outburst of an alarmed mother. She fled to the bungalow because that seemed the natural thing to do. And, never forgetting what was expected of her, cried aloud in presence of its emptiness. The river, the river, and went stumbling down the bank. The shoe was near at hand and she drew it out as she went on. When they found her she had fainted. The excess of excitement had this natural outcome. She did not have to play apart. The humiliation of her own deed and the terrors yet to come were eating up her very soul. Then came the blow, the unexpected, overwhelming blow of finding that the deception planned with such care, a deception upon the success of which the whole safety of the scheme depended, was likely to fail, just for the simple reason that a dozen men could swear that the child had never crossed the track. She was dazed, confounded. Mrs. Carew was not by to counsel her. She had her own part in this business to play. And Mrs. Ocampa, conscious of being mentally unfit for any new planning, conscious indeed of not being able to think at all, simply followed her instinct and held to the old cry in face of proof, of persuasion, of reason even. And so did the very wisest thing possible, no one expecting reason in a mother reeling under such a vital shock. But the cooler, more subtle and less guilty Mrs. Carew had some judgment left, if her own friend had lost hers. Her own part had been well played. She had brought her nephew home without giving anyone, not even the maid she had provided herself with in New York, an opportunity to see his face. And she had passed him over, dressed in quite different clothes, to the couple in the farm wagon, who had carried him, as she supposed, safely out of reach, and any possibility of discovery. You see, her calculations failed here also. She did not credit the doctor with even the little conscience he possessed, and, unconscious of his near-waiting on the highway, in anxious watch, for the event concerning which he had his own secret doubts, she diluted herself into thinking that all they had to fear was a continuation of the impression that Gwendolyn had not gone down to the river and been drowned. When, therefore, she had acted out her little part, received the surging party and gone with them over the house, even to the door of the room, where she said her little nephew was resting after his journey. Did they look in? Perhaps and perhaps not. It mattered little, for the bed had been arranged against this contingency, and no one but a detective bent upon ferreting out a crime would have found it empty. She asked herself how she could strengthen the situation and cause the theory advanced by Mrs. Okampa to be received, notwithstanding the evidence of seeming eyewitnesses. The result was the throwing of an additional shoe into the water, as soon as it was dark enough for her to do this unseen. As she had to approach the river by her own grounds, and as she was obliged to choose a place sufficiently remote from the lights about the dock, not to incur the risk of being detected in her hazardous attempt, the shoe fell at a spot farther down the stream than searchers had yet reached, and the intense excitement I had seen myself in Mrs. Okampa's face the day I made my first visit to Homewood sprang from the agony of suspense with which she watched, after twenty-four hours of alternating expectation and disappointment, the finding of this second shoe which, with fanatic confidence, she hoped would bring all the confirmation to be desired of her oft-repeated declaration that the child would yet be found in the river. Meanwhile, to the infinite dismay of both, the matter had been placed in the hands of the police, and words sent to Mr. Okampa, not that the child was dead, but missing. This meant worldwide publicity and the constant coming and going about Homewood of the very men whose insight and surveillance were most to be dreaded. Mrs. Okampa sank under the terrors thus accumulating upon her, but Mrs. Karoo, of different temperament and history, rose to meet them with a courage which bade fair to carry everything before it. As midnight approached, the hour agreed upon in their compact, she prepared to go for Gwendolyn. Mrs. Okampa, who had not forgotten what was expected of her at that hour, roused as the clock struck twelve and, uttering a loud cry, rushed from her place at the window to the lawn, calling out that she had heard the men shout aloud from the boats. Her plan was to draw everyone who chanced to be about, down to the river bank, in order to give Mrs. Karoo full opportunity to go and come unseen on her dangerous errand. And she apparently succeeded in this, for by the time she had crept back in seeming disappointment to the house, a light could be seen burning behind a pink shade in one of Mrs. Karoo's upper windows, the signal agreed upon between them of the presence of Gwendolyn in her new home. But small was the relief as yet. The shoe had not been found, and at any moment some intruder might force his way into Mrs. Karoo's house, and in spite of all her precautions, succeed in obtaining a view of the little Harry and recognize him as the missing child. Of these same precautions some mention must be made. The artful widow had begun by dismissing all her help, giving as an excuse her speedy departure for Europe, and the colored girl she had brought up from New York, saw no difference in the child running about the house in its little velvet suit. From the one who, with bound up face and a heavy shade over his eyes, came up in the cars with her in Mrs. Karoo's lap. Her duty being limited to a far-off watch on the child to see that it came to no harm, she was the best witness possible in case of police intrusion or a neighborhood gossip. As for Gwendolyn herself, the novelty of the experience and the prospect held out by a speedy departure to Papa's country kept her amused and even hilarious. She laughed when her hair was cut short, darkened and parted. She missed but one thing, and that was her pet plaything which she used to carry to bed with her at night. The lack of this caused some tears, a grief which was defined by Mrs. Ocampa, who took pains to assuage it in the manner we all know. But this was after the finding of the second shoe, the event so long anticipated and so little productive. Somehow neither Mrs. Karoo nor Mrs. Ocampa had taken into consideration the fact of the child's shoes being rights and lefts, and when this attempt to second the first deception was decided on, it was thought a matter of congratulations that Gwendolyn had been supplied with two pairs of the same make, and that one pair yet remained in her closet. The mate of that, shown by Mrs. Ocampa, was still on the child's foot in the bungalow, but there being no difference in any of them, what was simpler than to take one of these and fling it where it would be found? Alas, the one seized upon by Mrs. Karoo was for the same foot as that already shown and commented on, and thus the second attempt failed even more completely than the first, and people began to cry, a conspiracy, and a conspiracy it was, but one which might yet have succeeded if Dr. Poole's suspicion of Mrs. Ocampa's intentions and my own secret knowledge of Mrs. Ocampa's real position toward the child could have been eliminated from the situation. But, with those two factors against them, detection had crept upon them in unknown ways, and, neither Mrs. Ocampa's frantic clinging to the theory she had so recklessly advanced, nor Mrs. Karoo's determined effort to meet suspicion with the brave front calculated to disarm it, was of any avail. The truth would have its way and their secret stood, revealed. This was the story told me by Mrs. Ocampa, not in the continuous and detailed manner I have here set down, but in disjointed sentences and wild bursts of disordered speech.  It was the hardest question which has ever been put me. For minutes I contemplated her in a silence which must have been one prolonged agony to her. I did not see my way. I did not see my duty. Then, the fifty thousand dollars. At last I replied as follows. Mrs. Ocampa, if you will let me advise you, as a man intensely interested in the happiness of yourself and husband, I would suggest you are meeting him at quarantine and tell him the whole truth. I would rather die, she said. Yet only by doing what I suggest can you find peace in life, the consciousness that others know your secret will come between you and any satisfaction you can ever get out of your husband's continued confidence. A wrong has been done. You are the only one to write it. I cannot. I can die, but I cannot do that. And for a minute I thought she would die then and there. Dr. Poole is a fanatic. He will pursue you until he is assured that the child is in good hands. You can assure him of that now. Next month his exactions may take another direction. You can never trust a man who thinks he has a mission. Pardon my presumption. No mercenary motives prompts what I am saying now. So you intend to publish my story if I do not? I hesitated again. Such questions cannot be decided in a moment. Then, with the certain consciousness of doing right, I answered earnestly. To no one but Mr. Ocampa do I feel called upon to disclose what really concerns no one but yourself and him. Her hands rose toward me in a gesture which may have been an expression of gratitude or only one of simple appeal. He is not due until Saturday, I added gently. No answer from the cold lips. I do not think she could have spoken if she had tried. CHAPTER XXII My first step on leaving Homewood was to seek a public telephone. Calling up Dr. Poole in Yonkers, I assured him that he might rest easy as to the young patient to whose doubtful condition he had called my attention, that she was in good hands and was doing well, that I had seen her end would give him all the necessary particulars when I came to interview him later in the day. To his uneasy questions I vouchsafe little reply. I was by no means sure of the advisability of taking him into my confidence. It was enough for him to know that his demands had been complied with without injury to the child. Before hanging up the receiver I put him a question on my own behalf. How was the boy in his charge? The growl he returned me was very noncommittal and afforded me some food for thought as I turned back to Mrs. Carew's cottage, where I now proposed to make a final visit. I entered from the road. The heavily wooded grounds looked desolate. The copper beaches which are the glory of the place seem to have lost color since I last saw them above the intervening hedges. Even the house, as it gradually emerged to view through the close shrubbery, were a different aspect from usual. In another moment I saw why. Every shutter was closed and not a vestige of life was visible above or below. Startled for I had not expected quite so hasty a departure on her part I ran about to the side door where I had previously entered in ring fit to wake the dead. Only solitary echoes came from within and I was about to curse the time I had lost in telephoning to Dr. Poole when I heard a slight sound in the direction of the private path and, leaping hastily to the opening, caught the glimpse of something or somebody disappearing down the first flight of steps. Did I run? You may believe I did, at least till I had descended the first terrace, then my steps grew gradually wary and finally ceased, for I could hear voices ahead of me, on the second terrace to which I had now come, and these voices came from persons standing still. If I rushed on I should encounter these persons, and that was undesirable. I accordingly paused just short of the top and so heard what raised the moment into one of tragic importance. One of the speakers was Mrs. Carew, there was no doubting this. The other was Mr. Rathbone. From no other lips than his could I hope to hear words uttered with such intensity, though he was guarded in his speech, or thought he was, which is not always the same thing. He was pleading with her, and my heart stood still with the sense of threatening catastrophe as I realized the attitude of the pair. He, as every word showed, was still ignorant of Gwendolyn's fate, consequently of the identity of the child who I had every reason to believe was at that very moment fluttering a few steps below in the care of a colored maid whose voice I could faintly hear. She, with his passion to meet and quell, had this secret to maintain, hearing his wild entreaties with one ear and listening for the possible outbursts of the not-to-be-restrained child with the other, mad to go to catch the train before discovery overwhelmed her, yet not daring to hasten him, for his mood was a man's mood, and not to be denied. I felt sorry for her, and cast about in my mind what aid to give the situation, when the passion of his words seized me, and I forgot her position in the interest I began to feel in his. Valerie, Valerie, he was saying, this is cruelty. You go with no good cause that I can see, put the sea between us, and yet say no word to make the parting indurable.   I want a promise, conditional, oh, God, but yet a promise, and you simply bid me to have patience, to wait, as if a man could wait who sees his love, his life, his future trembling in the balance against the fate of a little child. If you loved me, hush. The feeling in that word was not for him, I felt it at once. It was for her secret, threatened every instant she lingered there by some move, by some word which might escape a thoughtless child. You do not understand me, Justin. You talk with no comprehension of myself or of the event. Six months from now, if all goes well, you will see that I have been kind, not cruel. I cannot say any more. I should not have said so much. Go back, dear friend, and let me take the train with Harry. The sea is not impassable. We shall meet again, and then. Did she pause to look behind her down those steps, to make some gesture of caution to the uneasy child? You will forgive me what seems cruelty to you now. I cannot do differently.  The man's cry drove the irony of the situation out of my mind. Parilities, all parilities.  If you loved me—a quick engathering of his breath, then a low moan, then the irrepressible cry she vainly sought to hush—oh, Valerie, you are silent. You do not love me.  I will trouble you no more. Gwendolyn alive or Gwendolyn dead, what is it to me? I—hush, there is no doubt on that topic the child is dead. Let that be understood between us. This was whispered and whispered very low, but the air seemed breathless at that moment, and I heard her. This is my last word to you. You will have your fortune whether you have my love or not. Remember that, and— Auntie, make Dina move away. I want to see the man you are talking to. Gwendolyn had spoken.


t I'll do that if someone wants to make that motion um all right if uh okay I move that the city council doesn't make Raj as the voting delegate for sx junction at the VLCT 2023 annual meeting second thank you we have a motion and a second any discussion hearing none all those in favor these signify by saying hi hi hi I suppose motion passes thank you very much so we are planning to register folks quickly because of the early bird rate Elaine we know you're in for the two days and it's there's a lot of options so we need to know how many days and if you also want the night event on Tuesday and so I'll have Joanne send you the options and so you can decide yeah I can do that tomorrow if I get the information okay awesome I'll return her email tomorrow morning okay so I confirm great uh 5 FY 24 excuse me FY 24 tax rate increase correction and clarification so I can share my screen here apologies for this mistake so essentially all of this documentation was correct through the budgeting process when the tax rate was finalized in the July memo the comparison in last year's memo we sort of carried forward and used the same memo format as last year and missed that the tax agreement was in one of those columns and not in the other so definitely a mistake not a great mistake and certainly apologies so on Monday we put a correction out and then we edited that more completely in this memo that you have in front of you and in the packet today and this was put up as a news item on the city's website today as well also the the documents in the FY 25 budget file including this memo and when we bring the tax rate to you next year has already been corrected and clarified so that we don't make this mistake again Jess is on zoom to Jess I don't know if you have anything that you want to add no just this is totally my mistake I gave you all the wrong information when we approved the tax rate and like Regina said the file has already been fixed for next year so this will not happen again thank you Jess we appreciate the clarification and for folks at home the tax agreement is the agreement with Whitcomb farm to keep land open for use that was just approved at the end of June by this board for another three years with a couple three years of extensions that cost the average $280,000 home about $3.60 I want to say no it's right there in front of me $4.20 cost me $3.60 and that was the line I believe that was missing so I also apologize for not catching this we do strive to put out accurate information it's sort of first and foremost for us so this is incredibly unfortunate and we will discuss internally how we we can make sure that what we're doing is a little more foolproof and so these things don't happen again but can I ask a question on the procedure since we have what we approved the last time was not what is presented to see there was an error do we need to re-approve these numbers just was the tax rate the tax rate different no the tax rate was correct the tax rate the description of a dollar difference was where the error is and that's our description of the tax rate that we approved exactly so no I would think we don't but I don't have that from our boss we're good? yep and this was discovered when we saw some folks conversing about it a couple of us heard from people it took me a week to get my bill once I finally did it was also clear that it was all so again apologies to the community for this we will work to do better any questions about this comments in the room no on zoom anyone on zoom have a comment on this topic back to the agenda thank you Jess for sticking around so long appreciate it no problem thank you we have an executive session first we need to approve the consent agenda motion to approve the consent agenda moved excellent any discussion hearing none all those who all those in favor of approving the consent agenda excuse me we say aye aye those powers nay reading file any other comments just a few questions and we are starting the greatest tree contest on September 1st it's very exciting the greatest tree contest the tree advisory committee is doing this contest they are purposely keeping some parameters off of it because they just want folks to provide their feedback on what the greatest tree might be just two staff announcements Joanne Faff has started as the admin assistant in my office on Monday which is very exciting and Jennifer Marble is the city planner who will start on Monday also very exciting and also just the co-gen facility at the wastewater treatment facility was down quite a bit because we had some engine trouble there very exciting that that is up and running and they are already seeing those savings in their utility costs from that system up and running again so that is very exciting and that unit burns methane produced in the digestion process for the wastewater treatment plant to make electricity to go back in the plant I remember my tour it was awesome tour great I don't have anything considering what time it is anybody else okay executive session motion I don't expect we'll come back out right okay you have in front of you I do bless you I move that the city council make the specific finding that general public knowledge of pending or probable civil litigation or a prosecution to which the public body is or maybe a party would place the city of substantial disadvantage I move that the city council enter into executive session to discuss pending or probable civil litigation or a prosecution to which the public body is or maybe a party pursuant to one VSA 313A1E to include the city council and city manager I'll second both motions great both motions will vote on motion one all those in favor say aye aye motion one passes and we'll vote on motion two all those in favor say aye aye those opposed great thanks for sticking around