"Oh, Mr. Alick, I am sure you know something you don't tell me. Do, do please let me know all."
"You had better do so, Alick," said Miss Baby.
"The trouble is that I don't know anything certainly, though I have a very strong suspicion," said Alick. "Therese, the truth is your father has been seen twice during the last week. Sam Bryant met him face to face on Blue Hill last Saturday, and I saw him twice on the same day."
"You don't think he has murdered her?" said Therese, in a horrified whisper.
"No," answered Alick; "there are no signs of that. I think that she has gone away with him."
"I don't believe it," said Therese, with a flash of indignant feeling which brought the colour back to her face. "My mother would never desert me for him—I know she never would."
"Let us look about again," said Doctor Duncan. "Has anything else been altered since you were here?"
At that moment the cat made her appearance from a little shed not far from the house. Therese went and looked into the shed.
"The cat's basket was up-stairs in the house, and now it is down here," she said. "Somebody must have moved it."
She went into the house and began moving out the bed from the wall.