The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-03-03
CHAPTER XIV

RulCkly Sne bent to DICK It up. And as she looked at it, her eyes widened with sudden compre- hension and understanding. She remembered picking up that same glove once before that evening plain black kid glove, trimmed her own house she had picked it up and handed it to Joan Barrett!
 Back at the Downs house, Dor othy paced the floor with ever in- creasing anxiety. What was keep ing Joan? Surely it had not taken her more than two hours to tell her story to MT. Hendry.
 A strange foreboding possessed her that MT. Hendry may have been intolerantly harsh, and Joan, frightened at this turn of events, had carried out her first impulse and run away.
 She blamed herself for not con- sidering that eventuality before this. She might have offered to &C., company Joan, or at least to have waited for her somewhere. It was a mistake letting the poor girl go off alone; she was so morbidly up- set by the continual persecution that she could no longer think straight.
 But she could not have run away. Over and over Dorothy per- suaded herself of this. Where would she have gone at one o'clock in the morning, without any money? Dorothy knew that Joan had only a small sum of money in her bag.
 I'll wait another ten minutes" she decided. "I'll wait until two- thirty, and then I'll phone and see if she's still there."
 She continued to pace up and down the room, stopping every once in while to peer out into the street for some sign of Joan's return. At two-thirty, she went to thD phone in her auntS room and called the Hendry house.
 She waited, listening to the steady ring at the other end. There was no answer. She called the operator again, to make sue that she was ringing the right number. She listened again to the buZzing call signal. Even if Mir. Hendry were a&leep, he'd have heard the tele- phone by this time. And If he were asleep, where was Joan? Five min- utes after she left him, she would have been home.
 Dorothy was trembling with new fear as she finally replaced the telephone on it's hook.
 Something had happened.
 In frantic haste, she changed her pajamas for a dress, slipped on shoes and stockings and a heavy coat, and ran from the house. She, too, sped in the direction of MT. Hendry's little white cottage
 At every bend in the road, she stared ahead for some sign of Joan, but she saw none. Green Hills still slept in quiet contentment.
 Then, in the next instant, the air was suddenly split with the shrill cry of police sirens, and as Dorothy turned into MT. Hendry's street, a car sped by her, then an- other, and from the opposite di- rection, two more appeared.
 Ollc oCOpPcu III iIcI CldCho, dllO q terrible fear chilled her to the very marrow of her bones. For each one of the police cars was drawing up in front of the Hendry cottage, and from within there caI34c the frantic, hysterical cries of a woman. She recognized the voice of Sybil Hendry. -.
 Seven miles north Of Green Hills lies another Suburb-Burlingto A small mill town it is, lacking the charm and dignity of it's neighbor- ing community. No main highway connects it with Green Hills, but one who knows the community might find narrow dirt road, lone 1y and deserted, heading due north out of Green Hills and crossing the interlying truck farms to the village of Burlington. Farmers use the road, and domestic works from Green Hills.
 And this night, in blind terror, Joan Barrett stumbled onto the Burlington road. Where it led to, she neither knew nor cared. She