"Thanks, Mr. Walraven; but I am fit company for no one. I have been utterly miserable since that fatal night. I can find rest nowhere. I will not inflict my wearisome society upon you, my friend. Good-night!" The week passed. As Sir Roger said, the inquiries and rewards were doubled--trebled; but all in vain. No trace--not the faintest shadow of trace--of the lost one could be found. The mystery deepened and darkened every day. The week expired. On its last night there met at the Walraven mansion a few friends, to debate what steps had better next be taken. "In the council of many there is wisdom," thought Mr. Carl Walraven; so that there were present, besides Sir Roger Trajenna, Dr. Oleander, Mr. Sardonyx, Hugh Ingelow, and one or two more wiseacres, all anxious about the missing bride. The bevy of gentlemen were assembled in the drawing-room, conversing with solemn, serious faces, and many dubious shakes of the head. Sir Roger sat the picture of pale despair. Mr. Walraven looked harassed half to death. The other gentlemen, were preternaturally grave. "It is of no use." Sir Roger was saying. "Those who abducted her have laid their plans too well. She will never be found." "Are you sure she was abducted?" asked Dr. Oleander, doubtfully. "Is it not just possible, my dear Sir Roger, she may have gone off of herself?" Everybody stared at this audacious suggestion. "There is no such possibility, Doctor Oleander," said Sir Roger, haughtily. "The bare insinuation is an insult. Miss Dane was my plighted wife of her own free will." "Your pardon, Sir Roger. Yet, please remember, Miss Dane was a highly eccentric young lady, and the rules that hold good in other cases fail here. She was accustomed to do most extraordinary things, for the mere sake of being odd and uncommon, as I take it. Her guardian will bear me out; therefore I still cling to the possibility." "Besides, young ladies possessing sound lungs will hardly permit themselves to be carried off without raising an outcry," said Mr. Sardonyx; "and in this case there was none. The faintest cry would have been heard." "Neither were there any traces of a struggle," put in Mr. Ingelow, "and the chamber window was found unfastened, as if the bride had loosed it herself and stepped out." Sir Roger looked angrily around, with a glance that seemed to ask if they were all in a conspiracy against him; but, before he could speak, the door-bell rang loudly. Mr. Walraven remembered the anonymous note, and started violently. An instant later, they heard a servant open the door, and then a wild, ringing shriek echoed through the house. There was one simultaneous rush out of the drawing-room, and down-stairs. There, in the hall, stood Wilson, the footman, staring and gasping as if he had seen a ghost; and there, in the door-way, a silvery, shining vision, in the snowy bridal robes she had worn last, stood Mollie Dane! CHAPTER X. THE PARSON'S LITTLE STORY.