"Jane says you have been playing hide-and-seek, and have lost Harold. Have you looked in the oak chest for him?"
"The oak chest?" we all repeated, with a terrified gasp. "If he has been shut in there for a couple of hours he will be dead!"
CHAPTER IX.
The Mystery Deepens.
Never had I longed so eagerly to walk, as I did that evening when all three cousins ran out of the room in pursuit of their missing brother. I had not really been anxious before, for Harold, although only nine years old, was well able to take care of himself, and I had only regretted that he would probably get into trouble again with father for disobedience. It never entered my head that he could possibly be hidden in the house, far less that he should be in the oak chest, which for all I knew was locked up.
The housemaid coming in just then, I begged her to carry me up to the tower-room, putting aside for the moment the fear I had always had, before my cousins came, of trusting myself to any one but father.
When we reached our den the children were standing by the chest, which was open, and was empty.
"He has been here," said Rupert; "see how the things are pressed down."