"Nothing had been heard from them when I came up town." He still stood, watching her pityingly. "I hope you understand how sorry I am--how dreadful I feel about it." He walked over to her and she thought he meant to go. She had not heard what he said, but she thought he had been offering help. "Oh, thank you! Everything is being done, I know. They will find him to-night, won't they? They surely must," she pleaded. Her father called her in his weakened voice to know who was there and she hurried away to him. Wheaton's eyes followed her as she went weeping from the room, and he watched her, feeling that he might never see her again. He felt the poignancy of this hour's history,--of his having brought upon this house a hideous wrong. The French clock on the mantel struck seven and then tinkled the three quarters lingeringly. There were roses in a vase on the mantel; he had sent them to her the day before. He stood as one dazed for a minute after she had vanished. He could hear Porter back in the house somewhere, and Evelyn's voice reassuring him. The musical stroke of the bell, the scent of the roses, the familiar surroundings of the room, wrought upon him like a pain. He stared stupidly about, as if amid a ruin that he had brought upon the place; and then he went out of the house and down the slope into the street, like a man in a dream. While Wheaton swayed between fear and hope, the community was athrill with excitement. The probable fate of the missing boy was the subject of anxious debate in every home in Clarkson, and the whole country eagerly awaited further news of the kidnapping. Raridan and Saxton hearing early of the boy's disappearance had at once placed every known agency at work to find him. Not satisfied with the local police, they had summoned detectives from Chicago, and these were already at work. Rewards for the boy's return were telegraphed in every direction. The only clue was the slight testimony of Mrs. Whipple. She had told and re-told her story to detectives and reporters. There was only too little to tell. Grant had walked with her to the car. She had seen only one of the men that had driven up to the curb,--the one that had inquired about the entrance to Mr. Porter's grounds. She remembered that he had moved his head curiously to one side as he spoke, and there was something unusual about his eyes which she could not describe. Perhaps he had only one eye; she did not know. Every other man in Clarkson had turned detective, and the whole city had been ransacked. Suspicion fastened itself upon an empty house in a hollow back of the Porter hill, which had been rented by a stranger a few days before Grant Porter's disappearance; it was inspected solemnly by all the detectives but without results.