And indeed Leslie was not sorry of the opportunity to go. There was one reason in particular for this: Cobblestone was but a quarter of a mile away from the Ilingsworth place; and Ilingsworth's place, like its former owner, had become a wreck. It was overgrown with weeds, was falling gradually to pieces; upon it had been laid the heavy hand of disuse and decay. The heavy mortgage on the place had been foreclosed; the property laid vacant, idle; it had become an eye-sore to Leslie. Besides, vague rumour had it that the place was haunted--lights, even, having been seen in the rooms at night. It was none of these things, however, that had disquieted Leslie, but the fact that one night at dusk as she tripped along the road, a man had darted from the road-side, and laying a detaining hand upon her arm, had said to her: "I wish you could help me find my daughter. I've tried to beg, borrow, steal even, to get enough to find her, but----" he had stopped to search her face, "but you're a Wilkinson, I see; you wouldn't help;" and letting her go, he suddenly disappeared in the shadows. Naturally, the girl had been frightened. Afterwards, however, she regretted that she had not tried to detain Ilingsworth, for he it was, since there were mysteries about him which she could not understand. If he had lost his daughter, why did he not use the money that he had stowed away--the millions that her father had told her about,--and why was the mortgage on his place foreclosed? The mortgage on her own father's place had not been foreclosed, she was sure of that. And so insistent became the pressure of these doubts that one night just before they returned to town, she sent a servant over with a note to Ilingsworth. Leslie knew him for a murderer, a forger, a perjurer, a thief, and yet some instinct drove her to this act. " ... Some time," she wrote, "when we are out of our own trouble, if there is anything that I can do--for Elinor--believe me I shall do it--the very best I can."