"It is a great mystery," mused Mrs. Carlyon. "What could have become of her? Where can she be?"
"She was hurt in some way, or else frightened," said Susan. "Screams of terror, those two were, that I heard."
"With regard to those screams," returned Mrs. Carlyon, "the singular thing is that no one else heard them; no one in the house."
"Tom Barnet heard them, ma'am, the coachman's boy," interposed the mother, smoothing down the sleeve of her lilac cotton gown. "I can't think there's any doubt but that the screams came from Katherine. I'd give--I'd give all I'm worth to know where she is, dead or alive."
"She is inside Heron Dyke!" cried Susan, her voice taking a sound of awe.
"Nonsense," somewhat impatiently rebuked Mrs. Carlyon. "You ought to know that it cannot be, Susan."
Susan lifted her patient face, a pleading kind of look on it.
"Ma'am, she's there; she's there. I've seen her at the window of her room in the moonlight; it's three times now."
"Run in, Susie; I thought I heard the gentleman's bell," spoke her mother, and Susan gathered up her work and went. But Mrs. Carlyon saw it was only a ruse to get rid of her.
"She is growing almost silly upon the point, ma'am," Mrs. Keen began; "thinking she sees her sister at the window. I believe it's all fancy, for my part; nothing but the reflection of some tree branches cast on the window-blind by the moon."