Presently, however, this persistent absence of one whose very nature it was to be present excited surprise, and eventually a mysterious uneasiness. Search was made about the house; no one was discovered up stairs but Mrs. Lauson, brooding alone; then a neighbor or two was visited by Bessie; still no Aunt Mercy. The solemn truth was, although no sanguinary sign as yet revealed it, that the Lauson tragedy had an hour since been consummated. The search for the missing Aunt Mercy continued until it aroused the interest and temper of Squire Lauson. Determined to find his daughter once that he had set about it, and petulant at the failure of one line of investigation after another, the hard old gentleman stumped noisily about the house, his thick shoes squeaking down the passages like two bands of music, and his peeled hickory cane punching open doors and upsetting furniture. When he returned to the sitting-room from one of these boisterous expeditions, he found his wife sitting in the light of the kerosene lamp, and sewing with an impatient, an almost spiteful rapidity, as was her custom when her nerves were unbearably irritated. “Where’s Mercy?” he trumpeted. “Where _is_ the old gal? Has anybody eloped with her? I saw Deacon Jones about this afternoon.” This jest was meant to amuse and perhaps to conciliate Mrs. Lauson, for whom he sometimes seemed to have a rough pity, as hard to bear as downright hostility. He had now and then a way of joking with her and forcing her to smile by looking her steadily in the eye. But this time his moral despotism failed; she answered his gaze with a defiant glare, and remained sullen; after another moment she rushed out of the room, as if craving relief from his domineering presence. Apparently the Squire would have called her back, had not his attention been diverted by the entry of his granddaughter. “I say, Bessie, have you looked in the garden?” he demanded. “Why the Devil haven’t you? Don’t you know Mercy’s hole where she meditates? Go there and hunt for her.” As the girl disappeared he turned to the door through which his wife had fled, as if he still had a savage mind to roar for her reappearance. But after pondering a moment, and deciding that he was more comfortable in solitude, he sat slowly down in his usual elbow-chair, and broke out in a growling soliloquy:— “There’s no comfort like making one’s self miserable. It’s a —— sight better than making the best of it. We’re all having a devilish fine time. We’re as happy as bugs in a rug. Hey diddle diddle, the cat’s in the fiddle—” The continuity of his rough-laid stone-wall sarcasm was interrupted by Bessie, who rushed into the sitting-room with a low shriek and a pallid face. “What’s the matter now?” he demanded. “Has the cow jumped over the moon?” “O grandfather!” she gasped, “I’ve found Aunt Mercy. I’m afraid she’s dead.”