A Private Chivalry

IN her own way -- which was the quietest and least obtrusive of ways -- Dorothy was quite as intolerant of mysteries as was her father, and after the evening when Brant had gone forth to seek and to save that which was lost, small mysteries seemed to lie in wait for her at every turn.

They began the following day with Brant's brief visit and abrupt departure. She had heard his voice in the hall, and, a little later, the rustle of skirts as some one -- her mother, she thought it was at the time -- had gone in to meet him. Of what took place in the drawing-room she knew nothing, but a few minutes afterward, when she was going down to join them, he had stumbled out into the hall, snatched his coat and hat from the rack, and left the house without once looking behind him. So much Dorothy saw from the stair, and she also saw that he was excited and preoccupied, and that his face was the face of one upon whom trouble sharp and serious has come suddenly.