Mrs. Carroll shook her head with great energy. "Oh! no, of course you did not!" exclaimed Xenie, quickly, "for it was midnight when I left you, and if Lora was wakeful and restless it must have been several hours before either one fell asleep. And it is not daylight yet, so you must have slept a very little while. Were you awakened by any noise, mamma?" The question was instantly negatived. "You were nervous and ill at ease, then, and simply awoke of yourself?" continued Mrs. St. John, anxiously. Mrs. Carroll's earnest, dark eyes said yes almost as plainly as her bowed head. "And when you woke, Lora and the babe were gone, mamma, and the front door stood wide open--is that the way of it, mamma?" continued Xenie, anxiously watching her mother's face for the confirmation of her question. Mrs. Carroll gave assent to it while a hoarse wail of anguish issued from her drawn, white lips. Xenie echoed the wail, and for a moment her white face was hidden in her hands while the most terrible apprehension stabbed her to the heart. Then she looked up and said quickly: "She must have wandered away in a momentary fit of flightiness--don't you think so?" And again Mrs. Carroll gave a quick motion of assent. "Then I must find her, mamma," said Xenie, quickly. "She cannot have gone very far. She was too weak to get away from us unless---- Oh! my God! she cannot have gone to the water!" moaned Xenie, clasping her hands in horror. Mrs. Carroll looked as if she were going into a fit at the bare suggestion. Her face turned purple again, her eyes stared wildly, she clutched at her throat like one choking. Xenie forced her back upon the lounge, applied restoratives, then exclaimed wildly: "Mamma, I cannot bear to leave you thus, but I must go and seek for my sister. Even now she may be perishing in reach of our hands. Ninon, the maid, will be here in a little while. She will care for you, and I will bring back my poor little Lora." She kissed her mother's face as she spoke, then hurried out, shawlless and bare-headed, into the chill morning air. It was a dark and gloomy dawn, with a drizzle of rain falling steadily through the murky atmosphere. A fine, white mist was drawn over the sea like a winding sheet. The sun had not tried to rise over the dismal prospect. Xenie ran heedlessly down the veranda steps, and bent her steps to the seashore, looking about her carefully as she went, and calling frantically all the time: "Lora, Lora, Lora! Where are you, my darling? Where are you?" But no answer came to her wild appeal. The soft, low patter of the steady rain, and the solemn sound of the waves as they madly surged upon the shore, seemed like a funeral requiem in her ears. She could not bear the awful voice of the sea, for she remembered that Lora had hated it because her husband was buried in its illimitable waves. But suddenly a faint and startling sound came to her ears.