A glad little cry answered him.  He himself ran forward, and the girl was in his arms, sobbing and trembling as if her heart would break.

“What has happened?  What has happened, darling?” James cried in an agony.  “Are you hurt?  What has happened?”

“Something very strange has happened, but I am not hurt,” sobbed Clemency.  James remembered the signal.  “Wait a second, dear,” he said; “your uncle and Aaron are searching, and I promised to fire the pistol if I found you.”  James fired his pistol in the air six times.  Then he returned to Clemency, who was leaning against a tree.  “How I wish we had driven here!” James said tenderly.

“I can walk, if you help me,” Clemency sobbed, leaning against him.  “Oh, I am so sorry I acted so this morning.  I got punished for it.  I haven’t been hurt, nobody has been anything but kind to me, but I have been dreadfully frightened.”

Gordon and Aaron came running up.  “Where have you been, Clemency?” Gordon demanded in a harsh voice.  “Another time you must do as you are told.  You are too old to behave like a child, and put us all in such a fright.”

Clemency left James, and ran to her uncle, and clung to him sobbing hysterically.  “Oh, Uncle Tom, don’t scold me,” she whimpered.

“Are you hurt?  What has happened?”

“I am not hurt a bit,” sobbed Clemency.

Gordon put his arm around her.  “Well,” he said, “as long as you are safe keep your story until we get home.  Elliot, take her other arm.  She is almost too used up to walk.  Now stop crying, Clemency.”

When they were home, in the office, Clemency told her story, which was a strange one.  She had been on her way home from Annie Lipton’s, and had reached a certain house, when the door opened and a woman stood there calling her.  She described the woman and the house, and James gave a start.  “That must be the same woman whom I saw,” he exclaimed.

“She was a woman I had never seen,” said Clemency.  “I think she had only lived there a very short time.”

Gordon nodded gloomily.  “I know who she is, I fear,” he said.  “Strange that I did not suspect.”

“She looked very kind and pleasant,” said Clemency, “and I thought she wanted something and there was no harm, but when I reached her the first thing I knew she had hold of me, and her hands were like iron clamps.  She put one over my mouth, and held me with the other, and pulled me into the house and locked the door.  Then she made me go into a little dark room in the middle of the house and she locked me in.  She told me if I screamed nobody would hear me, but she did speak kindly.  She was very kind.  Once she even kissed me, although I did not want her to.  She brought a lamp in, and made me lie down on a couch in the room and drink a glass of wine.  She told me not to be afraid, nobody would hurt me.  She seemed to me to be always listening, and every now and then she went