It was the custom of the family to retire rather early at that season of the year, and by half-past nine the house was dark and still. Mrs. Barclay dropped to sleep quickly, but waked about one o' clock, and lay unable to drift into unconsciousness again for the delightful pastime of thinking over her daughter's love affair. She began to wonder if Dolly, too, might not be awake, and the prospect of a midnight chat on that of all topics made her pulse beat quickly. Slipping noiselessly out of bed, so as not to wake her husband, who was snoring in his bed across the room, she glided up-stairs. She had not been there a moment before the Colonel was waked by a low scream from her, and then he heard her bare feet thumping on the floor overhead as she crossed the hall into the other rooms. She screamed out again, and the Colonel sprang up, grasped his revolver, which always lay on the bureau, and ran into the hall. There he met his wife, half sliding down the stairs. “Dolly's gone,” she gasped. “Her bed hasn't been touched. Oh, Seth, do you reckon anything has happened to her?” The old man stared in the dim light of the hall, and then turned towards the door which opened on the back veranda. He said not a word, but was breathing hard. The cabin of old Ned and his wife, Aunt Milly, was near by. “Ned; oh, Ned!” called out the Colonel. “Yes, marster!” “Crawl out o' that bed and come heer!” “Yes, marster; I'm a-comin'.” “Oh, Seth, do you reckon--do you--?” “Dry up, will you?” thundered Barclay. “Are you comin', Ned?” Uncle Ned's gray head was thrust out at the partly open door. “You want me, marster?” “Yes; what do you suppose I called you for if I didn't want you. Now I don't want any lies from you. You know you can't fool me. I want to know if you carried a note from this house to anybody since sundown.” “A note must have been sent,” ventured Mrs. Barclay, in an undertone. “Dolly never would have gone to him. He must have been notified and come after her.” “Dry up, for God's sake!” yelled the Colonel over his shoulder to the spectre by his side. “Answer me, you black rascal.” “Marse Seth, young miss, she--” “She sent a note to Alan Bishop, didn't she?” interpolated the Colonel. “Marster, I didn't know it was any harm. I des 'lowed it was some prank o' young miss'. Oh, Lordy!” “You might know you'd do suppen, you old sap-haid,” broke in Aunt Milly from the darkness of the cabin. “I kin count on you ever' time.” “Get back in bed,” ordered the Colonel, and he walked calmly into his room and lay down again. His wife followed him, standing in the middle of the room. “Aren't you going to do anything?” she said. Her voice was charged with a blending of tears and a sort of feminine eagerness that is beyond the comprehension of man. “Do anything? What do you think I ought to do? Raise an alarm, ring the church-bells, and call out the hook-and-ladder company? Huh! She's made her bed; let her lie on it.”