“All this sounds extremely improbable to me.  If she is not at home again at breakfast, take the carriage and go after her.  Mind, May!  I will sift the whole matter when I come back.”  He hurried off, and she breathed freely once more.  Dr. Hartwell sprang into his buggy, to which a fresh horse had been attached, and, dismissing Hal, whose weight would only have retarded his progress, he drove rapidly off.  The gate had been left open for him, and he was passing through, when arrested by Harriet’s well-known voice.

“Stop, master!  Stop a minute!”

“What do you want?  I can’t stop!” cried he impatiently.

“Are you going after that poor, motherless child?”

“No.  But what the devil is to pay here!  I shall get at the truth now.  Where is Beulah?  Talk fast.”

“She is at the asylum to-night, sir.  I followed and watched the poor little thing.  Master, if you don’t listen to me, if you please, sir, you never will get at the truth, for that child won’t tell it.  I heard her promise Miss May she would not.  You would be ready to fight if you knew all I know.”

“Why did Beulah leave here this evening?”

“Because Miss May abused and insulted her; told her before some ladies that she was a ‘miserable beggar’ that you picked up at the hospital, and that you thought it was charity to feed and clothe her till she was big enough to work.  The ladies were in the front yard, and the child happened to be sitting by the fountain; she had just come from riding.  I was sewing at one of the windows upstairs, sir, and heard every word.  When the folks were gone Miss May walks up to her and asks her what she is doing where anybody could see her?  Oh, master! if you could have seen that child’s looks.  She fairly seemed to rise off her feet, and her face was as white as a corpse.  She said she had wanted an education; that she knew you had been very kind; hut she never dreamed of taking Miss Pauline’s place in your house.  She said she would not stay where she was unwelcome; that she was not starving when you took her home; that she knew you were kind and good; but that she scorned—­them were the very words, master—­ she scorned to stay a day longer where she had been so insulted!  Oh, she was in a towering rage; she trembled all over, and Miss May began to be scared, for she knew you would not suffer such doings, and she tried to pacify her and make up the quarrel by telling her she might stay and have an education, if that was all she wanted.  But the girl would not hear to anything she said, and told her she need not be frightened, that she wouldn’t go to you with the fuss; she would not tell you why she left your house.  She went to her room and she got every rag of her old clothes, and left the house with the tears raining out of her eyes.  Oh, master, it’s a crying shame!  If you had only been here to hear that child talk to Miss May!  Good Lord! how her big eyes did blaze when she told her she could earn a living!”