"Let me go, da----" cried the voice, drowned again at half a word,
as by a powerful hand upon a screaming mouth.

The old man opened the front door, stepped out, closing it behind
him; and the three women looked at each other wanly during a
hushed interval like that in a sleeping-car at night when the
train stops. Presently he came in again, and started up the
stairs, heavily and slowly, as he had gone down.

"Richard Lindley stopped him," he said, sighing with the ascent,
and not looking up. "He heard him as he came along the street, and
dressed as quick as he could, and ran up and got him. Richard's
taken him away."

He went to his own room, panting, mopping his damp gray hair with
his fat wrist, and looking at no one.

Cora began to cry again. It was an hour before any of this family
had recovered sufficient poise to realize, with the shuddering
gratitude of adventurers spared from the abyss, that, under
Providence, Hedrick had not wakened!



CHAPTER SIX

Much light shatters much loveliness; but a pretty girl who looks
pretty outdoors on a dazzling hot summer morning is prettier then
than ever. Cora knew it; of course she knew it; she knew exactly