"What is the matter?—you have been walking home in the heat!" she exclaimed. "Mr. Farnham, will you never remember that there is a medium?"
For once Farnham deigned to answer his wife.
"I walked very slowly, and am not tired," he said, "but what is this? what is it Frederick proposes to do?"
"Mrs. Chester has escaped from her house, sir, in a raving fever, and cannot be found. I was going with Joseph, here, to search for her," answered Frederick, looking anxiously into his father's face.
"What, another!" muttered the Mayor, with a pang of remorse. "Yes, go my son, I will help you; the whole police shall be put on the search if necessary."
Joseph lifted his eyes to the Mayor as he was speaking, and as Farnham caught the look, a smile broke over his face, one of those powerful smiles that transfigure the very features of some men.
"Thank you! oh! thank you!" exclaimed the boy, "we shall find her now."
Here Judge Sharp stepped forward and held out his hand, for the Mayor had not seen him till then.
"Let me go with these young people, perhaps I can help them better than the whole police," he said, kindly.
"I wish you would," answered the Mayor, "for I feel very strangely to-day." He certainly was pale, and seemed much shaken, as if some powerful feeling had seized upon his vitality.