"Lindsey Warwick! Is it possible? and I have let the wretch escape! Come, darling, to the house, that I may pursue the villain!" Earle cried in bitter anger and chagrin that he had been so easily duped.
But though Senator Winans, with his son and a dozen other men, followed the trail all night, the search was hopeless, for Lindsey Warwick cleverly eluded capture.
And through the long night hours the mother watched by the bedside of the nervous girl, who tossed restlessly upon her pillow, starting in alarm at every sound, and begging piteously to be taken away from Rosemont.
"We will go to-morrow, dear," Mrs. Winans promised tenderly.
Hetty Wilkins wept and protested when she was told the story of the man who claimed to be her lover.
"There is some mistake," she cried. "My young man's name is Watson Hunter. And he wasn't here to-night at all."
But Mrs. Winans insisted on dismissing Hetty next day, with a month's wages in lieu of a warning. This plan seemed best to them all.