I had thought Hezekiah secure when I locked the trunk-room door, but I had not counted upon the versatility and resourcefulness of that young person. I dropped to the second roof-level and inspected the down-spouts, but it was incredible that she had sought the earth by this means. I swung myself to a third level, and after much groping for my bearings, decided that an athletic girl of Hezekiah's venturesome disposition might, if she set no great store by her neck, clamber off the kitchen-roof by means of a tall maple whose branches now raspingly called attention to their slight contact with the house. It was here that the walls of Hopefield thrust themselves into the shoulder of a rough rocky knoll, and it was perfectly clear now that the chambers of the earlier house around which the mansion had been built were neatly enfolded by the walls on the east side. As the moon cruised into a patch of clear sky something white fluttered from a maple limb, and I bent and pulled it free. I took counsel of a match behind the kitchen chimney, and found that it was a handkerchief that had been knotted to the tip of the bough. No one but Hezekiah would have thought of marking her trail in this fashion. I held it to my face, and that faint perfume that had been a mystifying accompaniment of the passing of the mansion ghost became nothing more unreal than the orris in Hezekiah's handkerchief-case. The wind whipped the bit of linen spitefully in my hands. I reasoned that if Hezekiah the inexplicable had not meant for me to know the manner of her exit she need not have left this plain hint behind; but the swaying maple bough did not tempt me. I hurried back across the roof to secure the trunk-tray, resolved to dispose of it, seek the open, and find the errant Hezekiah if she still lingered in the neighborhood. I looked off across the windy landscape before descending, and as my eyes ranged the dark I caught the glimmer of a light, as of a lantern borne in the hand, in the meadow beyond the garden. It paused, and was swung back and forth by its unseen bearer. It shed a curious yellow light and not the white flame of the common lantern; and now it rose a trifle higher and slowly resolved itself into a weird fantastic face. Three minutes later I was out of the house, using the backstairs to avoid the company in the library, and had crossed the garden and crawled through the hedge. As I rose to my feet a voice greeted me cheerfully,-- "Well done, Chimney-Man! You were a little slow hitting the trail, but you do pretty well, considering. How did you manage with Aunt Octavia about that slipper? I had a narrow escape in the second-floor hall, when I came out of Cecilia's room. I must have lowered a record getting upstairs. And one shoe is n't a bit comfortable. Allow me to relieve you!" "Here's your slipper. You ought to be ashamed of yourself." "For losing my slipper? I thought Cinderella had made that respectable."