out, but she always locked the door behind her.  When she came back she would look terribly worried.  About half an hour ago she went out, and when she came back brought a tray with tea and bread and cold chicken for me.  I told her I would starve before I ate anything while she kept me there.  She did not seem to pay much attention, she looked so dreadfully worried.  She sat down and looked at me.  Finally, she said, as if she were afraid to hear her own voice, ’Has any accident happened near here lately that you have heard of?’ I told her about the man that fell down in our drive and died of erysipelas.  I did not tell her anything else.  All at once she almost fell in a faint.  Then she stood up, and she looked as if she were dead.  She told me to stay where I was just fifteen minutes, then I might go, but I must not stir before.  Then she kissed me again, and her lips were like ice.  She went out, and I knew the door was not locked, but I was afraid to stir.  I could hear her running about.  Then I heard the outer door slam, and I looked at my watch, and it was fifteen minutes.  Then I ran out and up the road as fast as I could.  Just before I saw Doctor Elliot the New York train passed.  I heard it.  I think she was hurrying to catch that.”

Gordon nodded.

“Oh, Uncle Tom, who was she, and why did she lock me up?” asked Clemency.

“Clemency,” said Gordon, in a sterner voice than Clemency had ever heard him use toward her, “never speak, never think, of that woman or that man again.  Now go out and eat your dinner.”

CHAPTER XII

Clemency was so worn out that Doctor Gordon insisted upon her going to bed directly after dinner, and he and James had a solitary evening in the office, with the exception of Gordon’s frequent absence in his wife’s room.  Each time when he returned he looked more gloomy.  “I have increased the morphine almost as much as I dare,” he said, coming into the office about ten.  He sat down and lit his pipe.  James laid down the evening paper which he had been reading.  “Is she asleep now?” he asked.

“Yes.  By the way, Elliot, have you guessed who that woman was who kidnapped Clemency?”

James hesitated.  “I don’t fairly know whether I am right, but I have guessed,” he replied.

“Who?”

“The nurse.”

“You are right.  It was the nurse.  That man had won her over, and set her up housekeeping in Westover.  He had been staying at the hotel there before he came here.  He was her lover, of course, although he was too circumspect not to guard the secret.  She has been living in that house for the last three months under the name of Mrs. Wood, a widow.  The former occupants went away last summer, Aaron has been telling me.  He said that once he himself saw the man enter the house, and he had seen the woman on the street.  She had made herself quite popular in Westover.  It was no part of that man’s policy to keep his