he has--"

"That he has what?" asked Amy, her eyes wide. "For goodness' sake, what do
you mean, Grace?"

Betty tried to stop her, but Grace hurried on heedlessly.

"He may have committed suicide," she cried, adding, in response to
Mollie's and Amy's cry of horror: "You know he must have been desperate
enough to do anything, poor old man, out here all alone."

At the conviction in Grace's tone, Betty felt her own nerve slipping. She
did not want to go into that silent house any more than the other girls
did. Every instinct in her commanded that she run from the place to the
commonplace safety of the road. She was afraid of what she might find on
the other side of that unlocked door. And yet--

"I'm going in," she cried, and, suiting the action to the word, pushed the
door quickly open and stepped over the threshold.

Emboldened by her example, the other girls followed and stopped short with
a cry of dismay. They had not found what they feared--but something almost
as bad.

The room, which had been so neat and orderly when they had last seen it,
was now the scene of such utter confusion as one might only hope to see
depicted in a cubist's nightmare.

The animal skins which had adorned the walls had been torn down and lay in
a tattered heap upon the floor. The shelves upon which had rested the