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190 auto horn—I thought all sorts of things—I awoke with a start, and fell out."

"Then our auto did not strike you?" asked Mollie.

"No, I was just stunned by the fall. When I woke up, and found myself in that farm house bedroom, I did not know what to think. One idea possessed me, that I must get away—that I would not go back to him—my guardian. So I slipped away, and I have been wandering about ever since. I managed to get enough office work to help support me, for I am a business college graduate and I had a little money of my own with me. Sometimes I stopped at hotels, and again at boarding houses. My one idea was to keep away from that man."

"And you dropped part of a letter; did you not?" asked Grace. "The day you ran from the farm house."

"Yes," Carrie admitted. "I had written one I intended leaving for—for that man. Then I decided not to and I tore it up just before I got out of the window. I suppose I must have dropped a piece. It was a letter saying I would never come back to Shadow Valley."

"How did you happen to come back here?' asked Mollie. "We were certainly puzzled at your sudden departure."