Looking back, there on the roof, it seemed a weary waste of years since that morning, only two months before, when she came laughing, dancing into my studio to ask her favor. A Mrs. Furneau, whom I knew slightly, had offered to drive her into New York that day, to a luncheon party at the house of some friends and a _matinée_ afterwards. Margaret was just seventeen, with an innocent, slender, childlike beauty that set me nearly crazy in my efforts to transfer it to canvas. She had come home for the summer holidays, and as usual her dainty wishes were my law. This party was to be a “Special treat, please!” So I had let her go. I gazed down at the darkened city, and for the thousand-and-first time went wearily over the events of that terrible time, seeking for the faintest clew. The first intimation that I had had of impending tragedy had come from Mrs. Furneau, the woman who had taken Margaret into New York. I had been working hard on a portrait and had hardly missed the child. But about seven o’clock, an hour after she should have been home, the telephone rang and a gasping voice came to me over the long-distance wire: “Is Margaret with you? Did she come home?” Mrs. Furneau sounded nearly distracted, but I had managed to drag the details out of her at length. They had gone to the luncheon and then to the _matinée_ in a party, she told me. A little after five, they had left the others and started for home in Mrs. Furneau’s car. Then, at 34th Street, Margaret had begged for ten minutes in which to do some shopping in one of the big stores near by. Mrs. Furneau had agreed to wait for her, and had pulled up in front of the store while Margaret got out and ran inside. And that was all! Mrs. Furneau had waited for nearly half an hour, and then, as she could see that the store was closing for the night, had gone inside to look for her. Not finding her, she had returned to the car. But Margaret had not come out, according to Mrs. Furneau’s chauffeur. So she went back again and searched the nearly empty store thoroughly this time. But she could learn nothing—could find no one who had even seen the child. Margaret had certainly entered the store, for the older woman said she had watched her graceful figure until it passed through the revolving doors. But after that she had vanished! Thinking that Margaret might have met and talked with friends or gone to another store in search of what she wanted, Mrs. Furneau had waited in the car for nearly an hour more. By that time all the stores were closed. And besides, Margaret was a considerate child and would never have stayed away so long of her own volition without telling her hostess. Mrs. Furneau became really frightened then and telephoned to me.