"No, I can not declare that."
"Then I shall always believe she did, and this same sweetmeat, this morsel from the table set for your guests on the afternoon of the sixteenth of this month, I found last night in the disused portion of the bungalow walled up by Mr. Ocumpaugh's father, but made accessible since by an opening let into the floor from the cellar. This latter I was enabled to reach by means of a trap-door concealed under the rug in the open part of this same building."
"I—I am all confused. Say that again," she pleaded, starting once more to her feet, but this time without meeting my eyes. "In the disused part of the bungalow? How came you there? No one ever goes there—it is a forbidden place."
"The child has been there—and lately."
"Oh!" her fingers began to tremble and twist themselves together. "You have something more than this to tell me. Gwendolen has been found and—" her looks became uncertain and wandered, as I thought, toward the river.
"She has not been found, but the woman who carried her into that place will soon be discovered."
"How? Why?"
I had risen by this time and could answer her on a level and face to face.
"Because the trail of her steps leads straight along the cellar floor. We have but to measure these footprints."
"And what?—what?"