Nell did not advance with impulsive outstretched hands, as she had done in the case of Mr. Ellerslie. It was as though her limbs refused to move under her. But when Dare came up and held out one of his hands, she laid one of hers in it readily enough. "It did not take long to bring you here, Miss Baynard," he said, "when once you knew that my uncle had tidings of the boy." After pressing her hand slightly he had withdrawn his own. They might have been the merest casual acquaintances, Nell felt a little bitterly. And yet, unless her feelings had blinded her, as he entered the room, she had detected in his eyes a flame of passionate ardor from which her own had been fain to shrink abashed. Could it be that he was hiding something from her, even as she was hiding something from him? As this question flashed across her she raised her eyes once more to his. But the flame which had so dazzled her a minute before was no longer there. Had it been extinguished? or was it merely that a veil had been temporarily drawn before it? It was after a scarcely observable pause that she answered his remark. "You may be sure that after Mr. Ellerslie's message reached me I let no grass grow under my feet. I came, looking to have merely some tidings of the boy, whereas it was Evan himself whom I found! But I am only telling you what you know already. When I began to thank your uncle, under the belief that I owed Evan's recovery to him, he stopped me. It seems that you are the person to whom my thanks are due. Believe me, Mr. Dare, they are yours from the bottom of my heart." Dare bowed. "Not a word more on that score, I beg," he said with a smile. "I need not tell you that it makes me very happy to have been the means of restoring Evan to you; but, as you are aware, I myself have a strong interest in the boy--strong enough to make it impossible for me to leave a stone unturned till he had been found, whether by me or some one else did not greatly matter." "I am very glad it was you, and not another, who found him." "And, of course, I am not sorry that such should have been the case." Miss Baynard had resumed her chair, and Dare had dropped into another no great distance away. "If there is no secret involved in the affair, and it will be breaking no confidence on your part, I should like you to tell me, not only how you succeeded in discovering Evan's whereabouts, but by what means you contrived to rescue him from the wretches--for wretches they must have been--who, to gratify some vile purpose of their own, stole him away in broad daylight." "'Tis a story very easily told. To your old friend Captain Nightshade is due the boy's rescue from those who abducted him." "To Captain Nightshade? Oh!"