But the thought was not to be put off.
“In a few minutes it will be quite dark!” said Elizabeth in terror. She walked again to the border of the woods, and again back to the house. She should never have allowed him to go alone. But he had proposed to look for traces of old boundary lines and she had consented, glad of his independence.
As she reached the edge of the woods once more, she looked back over her shoulder at the house. She had been in but one room and she felt suddenly afraid, afraid of the great bulk, afraid of the dark corners, afraid of the deep cellar and the cubby-holes in the attic. She turned and crossed the yard to the barn.
“If he has come back, Joe is here!”
But the stable was empty. Elizabeth then walked directly to the front door and back to the kitchen and there lit the lamp and lifted it from the table.
“Shall I find another vague notice?” said she to herself. “Or a positive threat of kidnapping?”
A notice was exactly what she found. Tossed in at the window of her own room, lying just where the first soiled scrap of paper had lain, was another. Upon it was the same gruesome sign of skull and cross-bones and below another ill-written message.
You bring that paper and you can hav him back.
“What paper?” said Elizabeth. “Have him back! Who! Where is he?”
But no voice answered, either from the house or from the dusky woodland.