“Craig,” Alex. gasped, a light beginning to break upon him, “is she related to old Pledger?” “To Joel Pledger? Yes. You saw her in the box with him, you know, and asked me who she was.” “But you didn’t tell me her name. You said his grand-niece,” Alex. replied. “She interested me then. She has puzzled me ever since she came here. Why did she come?” This question no one could answer, although Craig tried to do so. “I think she is a little erratic by nature,” Craig said. “I know she is fond of adventure, and probably the fancy struck her, as it does many young girls, to have some diversion in this line. You must have seen she was a lady?” “Always,” Alex. exclaimed. His interest in Sherry increased tenfold now that he knew she was the girl seen in old Pledger’s box and never forgotten. Amy said nothing. She was thinking of the dress and the jewelry, and wondering how they were to approach the subject. Questioning Fanny Sheridan Sherman, daughter of a clergyman and friend of Craig Saltus, was different from questioning No. 1. Alex. too, was worried, but it must be done, and the sooner it was off his mind the better. Going to the piazza, where he had left Sherry, he found her still there, with her eyes closed and the traces of tears on her face. “Miss Sherman,” he began, drawing a chair beside her, “I can’t tell you how surprised I am, and glad that—” he began to stammer, not knowing how to finish the sentence, for Sherry’s eyes were open now and fixed upon him. “Yes, I’m glad,” he went on, “and when you are feeling better you will tell me about it. Now I must speak of something else,—something imperative. Did you ever walk in your sleep?” Instantly a look of terror leaped into Sherry’s eyes, and her hands grasped the arms of the chair in which she was sitting. “Yes,” she answered, “when I was a child. I hoped I had outgrown the habit, but it came back to me some days ago and I took the key.” “What key?” Alex. asked, and Sherry told him the story of the key, leaving out her dream of her grandmother and only saying, “I dreamed some one told me where it was.” Alex. was more puzzled than ever. Why was she so interested in the chest and its contents? He would ask her later. He must get over the most important part at once, and he said: “The brocade and jewelry and Bible disappeared last night. Do you know where they are?” For a moment he thought Sherry had fainted, she sat so still and looked so white, and he put his hand on the one of hers nearest to him, and as she opened her eyes and looked at him he said, “Don’t feel so badly; try and remember.” Then she rallied and said in a choking voice: “No, I don’t know where they are. Did I walk in my sleep, and is that why I feel so dizzy and tired this morning, just as I used to feel? _Did_ I walk in my sleep?” Alex.’s hand was still on hers, and he felt her cold fingers closing tightly round it; and there was the pallor of death on her face as he told her what he saw.