Harris Wayne heard it as he was handing his hat to Rufus and asking if everything was all right at the house. The chauffeur who had driven Wayne home and who had been told to drive on around to the garage and wait until the storm was over, heard it and wondered what calamity had occurred. Then, thinking discretion the better part of valor, decided not to wait but quickly turned his car and started back toward town. As he left the driveway he thought he saw a low, dark racing car scud silently out from behind a group of cedars and off into the night in an easterly direction. He, himself, was going north. Almost as the shriek sounded, Wayne mounted the stairs in two bounds, the butler following. The nursery door stood wide and the nurse, speechless for the moment, was gesticulating frantically from the baby's empty crib to the open window through which the rain was beating and the ends of a ladder extended. "What is it? Did she fall?" cried the alarmed father, passing the bewildered nurse and striving to peer out the window. "Who put this ladder up here? Where's Doris--the baby?" Then the nurse got her breath. With a trembling finger she pointed toward the bed. "Gone!" she gasped. "She was there--sleeping--when I left--" She commenced to sob. "When you left?" repeated Wayne, questioningly, with difficulty restraining himself from taking hold of the nurse and shaking some information out of her. "Where were you? Weren't you here? Where's the baby, I say?" Unable, unwilling to sense the fact that the child had been stolen, he looked from the nurse to the butler for an answer. "I only went to get her a drink of milk," faltered the nurse. "But you said she was asleep," interrupted Wayne. "There's something wrong here. You're not telling me the truth." Like a flash came a recollection of the permission he had given for the chauffeur's wedding feast. "Were you down in the dining room?" he thundered. "Was the baby left here alone?" The nurse burst into tears. Wayne turned to the butler. "What about it, Wilkins? Was she down there? Tell me the truth or I'll choke it out of you." The butler knew better than to refuse. "Yes sir," he said, "for just a short time, sir." "That will do. That's all I want to know. The baby was here alone. Anna ran in when she heard me come. She found the baby gone--stolen. You don't know whether it was done before the storm or afterward. Am I right?" The words came like a rain of bullets. They both nodded, helplessly. "Yes sir. It couldn't have been very long ago, sir," commenced the butler, "for Anna only came--" He caught a glimpse of the cold fire in his employer's eyes and paused, trembling, lest he, himself, be cast bodily out of the open window, through which the baby had been taken.