Mrs. Van Rensselaer stood in the doorway of Dawn’s room, aghast, scarcely able to believe her eyes. Yes, the girl was gone. Where? was her instant thought. Perhaps she had fled, and would make them more trouble. A great fear clutched at the woman’s heart lest she had made a terrible mistake by not talking the matter over with her step-daughter the night before, and making her understand what she was to do. Now, perhaps, it would be found out by them all, and by her husband in particular, that she had not yet told the girl anything. Mrs. Van Rensselaer had a decided fear of her husband. Their wills had never really clashed so far, but for some years she had had a feeling that if they ever did, he would be terrible. She shrank back with a wild heating of her heart, and looked about the shadowy hall as if she expected to find the girl lurking there. Then her stern common-sense came to the surface, and she went boldly into the room and made a systematic search. It did not take but a minute to make sure that Dawn was not there, and that wherever she was she had taken nothing with her, save the clothes she had worn the evening before. It suddenly occurred to the step-mother that she ought to have gone into the room before retiring last night and made sure that her charge was there; but so sure had she been that she had heard Dawn come in, it had not occurred to her to do it. Besides, where could the girl go? She was very likely maundering about that dull old garden she had haunted ever since her return from school. With that, Mrs. Van Rensselaer looked out of the window, just in time to catch sight of her young guest cutting the roses. With keen apprehension, she saw what might be about to happen, and knew that instant action was the only thing that could prevent a catastrophe. Regardless of dressing-gown and slippers, and of the night-cap which concealed her scant twist of hair, she descended the stairs, strode out the front door and down the garden path, coming in sight of the young man just as he turned the corner of the yew hedge into the walk that led into the green arbor. Charles stopped suddenly, for there sat Dawn in her little white gown, with her head bowed upon her arms, on the rustic table, and her wealth of dark curls covering her. Her young frame shook with sobbing, yet so quietly did she weep that he had not heard her. Her ear, alert with apprehension, caught the sound of his foot upon the gravel, and she raised her head as suddenly as he had stopped. She looked at him with frightened eyes, out of which the tears had fled down her white cheeks. The face was full of anguish, yet sweet and pitiful withal, framed in its ripple of dark hair.