“Nowhere!  Stay here and attend to Mrs. Legrange until I return.  I shall go at once to the police-station.  James, you know where Mr. Burroughs lives?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go to him.  Or stay:  he is dining with a friend to-day.  Here is the direction.  Go to this house at once; see Mr. Burroughs; tell him that ’Toinette is lost, and beg him to come up here directly.  Keep your eyes open as you go:  you may possibly meet her yourself.  Hurry, man; hurry for your life!”

“Yes, sir,” replied the man heartily; and Mr. Legrange returned to his wife, who was walking quickly up and down the room, her hands clasped tight before her, her lips rigid, and her eyes set.

“There, darling, I have sent for Tom to help us; and no one could do it better than he will.  I am going to the police myself.  Take courage, dearest, and hope, as I do, that, before morning, we shall have our pet back, safe and sound.  But you—­O Fanny! how can I leave you so?  Try, try, for my sake, for ’Toinette’s sake, to be calm and hopeful.”

“Yes—­I—­will—­try!” sobbed the poor mother; and Mr. Legrange, not daring to trust himself to look at her again, lest he also should break down, hastened from the room.

But morning came, and night, and yet another morning and as the father, the mother, the cousin who was almost brother to both, the assistants, and poor broken-hearted Susan, looked into each other’s wan, worn faces, they found nothing there but discouragement, and almost hopeless despair.

Mrs. Legrange who had not eaten or slept since ’Toinette’s disappearance, was already too ill to sit up, but insisted upon remaining dressed, and waiting in the drawing-room for the reports that some one of those engaged in the search brought almost hourly to the house.  Her husband, looking like the ghost of his former self, wandered incessantly from his own home to the police-office and back again, each time through some new street, and peering curiously into the face of every child he met, that more than one of them ran frightened home to tell their mothers that they had met a crazy man, who stared at them as if he would eat them up.

And yet no clew, no faintest trace, of the little ’Toinette, who lay tossing in her fever-dreams upon good Mrs. Ginniss’s humble bed, while the young doctor day by day shook his head more sadly over her, and said to his own heart that it was only by God’s special mercy she could ever rise from that cruel illness.

CHAPTER XI.

A trace and A search.

Three weary nights and two days had passed, when as Mr. Legrange, bending over his wife’s sofa, entreated her to take the food and drink he had himself prepared for her, a sharp peal at the bell, followed by a bounding step upon the stair, startled them both.

“It is Tom, and he has news!” exclaimed Mrs. Legrange in a low voice, as she pushed away the tray and rose to her feet.