"I went at once to his shop to see him," continued Neil, "but he was not there. In the afternoon I called again, and found he had been absent all day. Fearing he was sick, I stopped at his house on my way home. A strange woman opened the door. She said Mr. Bradley and his daughter had gone away." "Gone away!" cried Maria. "Where have they gone? Agnes said nothing to me about going away." "The woman, Mrs. Hurd, she called herself, told me Agnes did not know she was to leave New York until fifteen minutes before she started." "When will they return?" asked Madame. "God knows," answered Neil, going to the fire and stooping over it. "I am cold and sick, mother," he said. "It was such a shock. No one at the shop expected such an event; everything was as busy as possible there, but the house! the house is desolate." "When did they go, Neil?" "Last night, mother, at eleven o'clock. Mr. Bradley came in about twenty minutes before eleven, put Mr. and Mrs. Hurd in possession, and told Agnes to pack a change of clothing for herself in a leather saddlebag he gave her. There was a boat waiting for them, and they went away in the darkness without a word. _O Agnes!"_ "What did the Hurds say?" "They know nothing." "Did Agnes leave no letter?" asked Maria, looking with pitying eyes at her uncle. "How could she? The poor child, how could she? She had no time. Some one had taken away her pens and pencils. She left a message with Mrs. Hurd. That was all." That was all. The next day New York City knew that John Bradley had left his business and his home and disappeared as completely as a stone dropped into the river. No one had suspected his intention; not his foreman, nor any of the fifteen men working in his shop; not his most intimate friends, not even his daughter. But it was at once surmised that he had gone to the rebel army. People began to murmur at the clemency shown to his son, and to comment on the almost offensive sympathy of the father for him. For a few days John Bradley was the absorbing topic of conversation; then he was forgotten by every one but Neil. His shop, indeed, was kept open by the foreman, under control of the government, but the name of Bradley was removed from above its entrance and the royal cipher G. R. put in its place. And in a few weeks his home was known as Hurd's place, and had lost all its little characteristics. Neil passed it every day with a heavy heart. There was no sweet face at the window to smile him a greeting; no beautiful woman to stand with him at the gate, or, hand in his hand, lead him into the little parlor and with ten minutes' conversation make the whole day bright and possible. The house looked forlorn; fire or candlelight were never visible, and he could only think of Agnes as driven away in the dark night by Destiny and wandering, he knew not where.