“I would have the grounds searched. She may be a somnambulist. Perhaps she has wandered off somewhere in her sleep,” suggested his wife. “Perhaps so,” he said, then he looked at her keenly. “Camille, I am tormented with a dreadful suspicion!” he exclaimed. “A sus--picion!” she faltered, growing deathly pale. “Yes.” “Of--of--whom?” she asked, in feeble, halting accents. “Of--alas! that I must speak it--of my mother!” She started and drew a long breath of relief. “Last night,” he continued, “I told my mother frankly of your opposition to my keeping the child. I could see that she took your part against me. She advised me to take the child away, but allowed me to persuade her to keep it till this morning. What if my mother, out of a mistaken sense of loyalty to you, Camille, has spirited away Sweetheart, lest she should stir up strife between us?” Her heart leaped with joy as she realized that it was his mother, not herself or Finette, whom he suspected. No pity stirred her heart for the kind mother-in-law of whose loyalty to herself she had just been assured by Norman. She caught eagerly at the loop-hole of escape opened to her by Norman’s suspicions. “Your theory looks plausible,” she said. “It was very kind of her to take my part, but perhaps she will restore the child when she learns that I have changed my mind about it.” CHAPTER IX. A week passed away, and again it was the night of Mrs. de Vere’s weekly reception. The magnificent house was ablaze with light, and a band of music in the broad hall filled the air with strains of sweetest music. In the drawing-room the friends of the hostess--fair women and gallant men--were dispersed in social groups, having just returned from the supper-room. Mrs. de Vere was looking stately and beautiful as usual in a costume of trailing dead-white silk, with a necklace of pearls. The trying costume was relieved by the warm hue of her eyes and hair, and her admirers declared that she was looking her loveliest. The mother-in-law, too, stately old lady that she was, came in for her share of admiration. Her handsome, high-bred face, with its large, dark eyes and frame of wavy, white hair, gave her a very distinguished air, and her black silk dress with point-lace fichu and diamond pin were very becoming. But the handsome old face was clouded with pain and grief this evening, for in some way she had become aware of her son’s suspicions, and her loving heart was almost broken by his coldness. Her eyes followed him wistfully as he stood apart from her, trying to do his part in the gay scene, but with a brooding trouble in his deep, dark eyes, for the fate of little Sweetheart rested heavily on his mind. In the week that had elapsed since the child’s disappearance, no clew to her whereabouts had been discovered. Unknown to any one, he had placed a clever detective on her track, but as yet he had received no tidings, and the suspense began to grow unbearable.