"What has happened?"

"I don't know. Something. I had a warning last night. There
wasn't a soul there. They've been sent for to Lincoln."

"Did you see anybody to ask?" asked Mrs. Dent with thinly concealed
anxiety.

"I asked the woman that lives on the turn of the road. She's stone
deaf. I suppose you know. She listened while I screamed at her to
know where the Slocums were, and then she said, 'Mrs. Smith don't
live here.' I didn't see anybody on the road, and that's the only
house. What do you suppose it means?"

"I don't suppose it means much of anything," replied Mrs. Dent
coolly. "Mr. Slocum is conductor on the railroad, and he'd be away
anyway, and Mrs. Slocum often goes early when he does, to spend the
day with her sister in Porter's Falls. She'd be more likely to go
away than Addie."

"And you don't think anything has happened?" Rebecca asked with
diminishing distrust before the reasonableness of it.

"Land, no!"

Rebecca went upstairs to lay aside her coat and bonnet. But she
came hurrying back with them still on.

"Who's been in my room?" she gasped. Her face was pale as ashes.