The Millionaire Baby | Page 6

cheek under my earnest scrutiny.
As it is important for the exact location of the bungalow to be understood, I subjoin a diagram of this part of the ground:
[Illustration: LAWN EXTENDING TO THE HIGHWAY.
A The Ocumpaugh mansion. B The Bungalow. C Mrs. Carew's house. D Private path. E Gap in hedge leading to the Ocumpaugh grounds. F Gap leading into Mrs. Carew's grounds. G Bench at end of bungalow.]
As I took this all in, I ventured to ask some particulars of the family living so near the Ocumpaughs.
"Who occupies that house?" I asked, pointing to the sloping roofs and ornamental chimneys arising just beyond us over the hedge-rows.
"Oh, that is Mrs. Carew's home. She is a widow and Mrs. Ocumpaugh's dearest friend. How she loved Gwendolen! How we all loved her! And now, that wretch--"
She burst into tears. They were genuine ones; so was her grief.
I waited till she was calm again, then I inquired very softly:
"What wretch?"
"You have not been inside," she suggested, pointing sharply to the bungalow.
I took the implied rebuke and entered the door she indicated. A man was sitting within, but he rose and went out when he saw us. He wore a policeman's badge and evidently recognized her or possibly myself. I noted, however, that he did not go far from the doorway.
"It is only a den," remarked Miss Graham.
I looked about me. She had described it perfectly: a place to lounge in on an August day like the present. Walls of Georgia pine across one of which hung a series of long dark rugs; a long, low window looking toward the house, a few articles of bamboo furniture describe the place. Among the latter was a couch. It was drawn up underneath the window, on the other side of which ran the bench where my companion declared she had been sitting while listening to the music.
"Wouldn't you think my attention would have been caught by the sound of any one moving about here?" she cried, pointing to the couch and then to the window. "But the window was closed and the door, as you see, is round the corner from the bench."
"A person with a very stealthy step, apparently."
"Very," she admitted. "Oh, how can I ever forgive myself! how can I ever, ever forgive myself!"
As she stood wringing her hands in sight of that empty couch, I cast a scrutinizing glance about me, which led me to remark:
"This interior looks new; much newer than the outside. It has quite a modern air."
"Yes, the bungalow is old, very old; but this room, or den, or whatever you might call it, was all remodeled and fitted up as you see it now when the new house went up. It had long been abandoned as a place of retreat, and had fallen into such decay that it was a perfect eyesore to all who saw it. Now it is likely to be abandoned again, and for what a reason! Oh, the dreadful place! How I hate it, now Gwendolen is gone!"
"One moment. I notice another thing. This room does not occupy the whole of the bungalow."
Either she did not hear me or thought it unnecessary to reply; and perceiving that her grief had now given way to an impatience to be gone, I did not press the matter, but led the way myself to the door. As we entered the little path which runs directly to that outlet in the hedge marked E, I ventured to speak again:
"You have reasons, or so it appears, for believing that the child was carried off through this very path?"
The reply was impetuous:
"How else could she have been spirited away so quickly? Besides,--" here her eye stole back at me over her shoulder,--"I have since remembered that as I ran out of the bungalow in my fright at finding the child gone, I heard the sound of wheels on Mrs. Carew's driveway. It did not mean much to me then, for I expected to find the child somewhere about the grounds; but now, when I come to think, it means everything, for a child's cry mingled with it (or I imagined that it did) and that child--"
"But," I forcibly interposed, "the police should know this."
"They do; and so does Mrs. Ocumpaugh; but she has only the one idea, and nothing can move her."
I remembered the wagon with the crying child inside which had been seen on the roads the previous evening, and my heart fell a little in spite of myself.
"Couldn't Mrs. Carew tell us something about this?" I asked, with a gesture toward the house we were now passing.
"No. Mrs. Carew went to New York that morning and had only just returned when we missed Gwendolen. She had been for her little nephew, who has lately been made an orphan, and