Mr. Voss questioned no further, and Doctor Angler, who now
understood better the meaning of his patient's condition, set
himself to the work of restoring her to consciousness. He did not
find the task easy. It was many hours before the almost stilled
pulses began beating again with a perceptible stroke, and the quiet
chest to give signs of normal respiration. Happily for the poor
mother, thought and feeling were yet bound.

Long before this the police had been aroused and every effort made
to discover a trace of the young man after he left the house of Mr.
Birtwell, but without effect. The snow had continued falling until
after five o'clock, when the storm ceased and the sky cleared, the
wind blowing from the north and the temperature falling to within a
few degrees of zero.

A faint hope lingered with Mr. Voss--the hope that Archie had gone
home with some friend. But as the morning wore on and he did not
make his appearance this hope began to fade away, and died before
many hours. Nearly every male guest at Mrs. Birtwell's party was
seen and questioned during the day, but not one of them had seen
Archie after he left the house. A waiter who was questioned said
that he remembered seeing him:

"I watched him go down the steps and go off alone, and the wind
seemed as if it would blow him away. He wasn't just himself, sir,
I'm afraid."

If a knife had cut down into the father's quivering flesh, the pain
would have been as nothing to that inflicted by this last sentence.
It only confirmed his worst fears.