As the time progressed, Ada’s uneasiness became more and more apparent, and when the waterman tended them at a craggy flight of wooden steps that merely led to the open fields, a tremor came over her, and she began to repent trusting Jacob Gray. “I see no house,” she said. “Whither are you leading me?” “There—to your left,” said Gray. “Yon low building is the place of our destination.” “Let us be quick,” said Ada. With a sneering smile Jacob Gray led the way by the side of the scanty hedges till they reached the gloomy, desolate mansion he had long fixed upon as his next place of concealment, should his lone dwelling at Lambeth be discovered. Ada looked upon the damp crumbling walls and shattered windows with a feeling of dread she could not conceal. “What place is this?” she falteringly asked. “’Tis an old deserted farm-house,” said Gray, “in which a murder, they say was committed.” “A murder?” “Yes; by a man named Forest. It is called now Forest House, and no one will willingly approach it.” They stood now in the shadow of the deep overhanging porch, and Jacob Gray for a moment gazed around him upon the wide expanse of marshy ground. A smile of triumph lit up his face with a demoniac-expression. “Ada,” he said, “you would have betrayed me—you may shriek now—no one will hear you; you may struggle—no one will aid you. This house is your prison—perhaps your tomb.” Ada clasped her hands in terror and despair. “Betrayed—betrayed! Oh, Albert—” she cried, and sunk in a state of insensibility on the door step of Forest House. CHAPTER XXXII. Albert’s Disappointment.—Tibbs, the Bear Warden.—The Search.—A Consultation. Within the hour he had named as being the extreme limit of his absence, Albert Seyton and his father arrived at Gray’s house at Lambeth. They knocked at first quietly, and finally loudly, for admittance. Here, as they had predetermined, they burst upon the frail door, and, calling upon Ada, Albert flew from room to room of the dismal house. No voice responded to his, and he was about to give up the search in despair, when a low rumbling sound met his ears from a room he had already visited, and which was immediately followed by a heavy crash of some fallen body. He and his father instantly rushed into the room, and there, amid the ruins, a table, several bottles, glasses, &c., lay Tibbs, the bear warden, who was evidently far gone in intoxication. The bear was licking its paws on the spot which would have been under the table had that article of furniture preserved its perpendicularity; but it now lay on one side, and it is to be surmised that Tipsy Tibbs had hidden under it upon hearing the sound of footsteps, and then upset it in his clumsy efforts to emerge from his temporary concealment. Mr. Seyton Albert looked with undisguised astonishment on the strange spectacle of a drunken man and a bear, where they expected to find a young girl and a cool designing villain.