Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH KKNEST RELEASES THE CAPTIVE MAIDEN FROM HER PRISON. WHAT the precise signification was of the " whew!" which the gentlemanly Tom had uttered, I did not know; but it seemed to indicate that he was not particularly pleased to learn that I had been a visitor at the house. I felt that there was work for me to do, which I could commence at once by following out the clew afforded me by Mrs. Loraine's visitor. My first business was to ascertain who this gentleman was. Doubtless any one in the house could tell me. Probably Kate knew all about him, and I was all the more eager to see her. I walked down to the pier in a brown study. Mrs. Loraine had positively refused to let me sec Kate, at the present time or in the future. She wasagain confined to her room, not to leave it, I judged, for weeks, unless I put my plan of intervention into execution. Her oppressor was away, and the present seemed to be the most favorable time for releasing the captive. " Come, Ernest, are you going home, or not ?" called Bob, who was getting impatient at my delay. " Not yet, Bob; there is something for us to do before we go." "What's that?" "I don't intend to leave Miss Kate here." " I don't see what we can do about it," said he. " I haven't any idea of leaving her to the tender mercies of that tigress. She shall be a passenger in the Splash," I added, as I stepped into the boat, and sat down in the standing-room. " I want to see her for my own sake as well as hers. I've had an idea since you left me." "An idea?" queried he. "Yes, a big idea. You know my story as well as I know it myself, and I don't mean to keep anything from you." "What's up, Ernest?" " I want to know who and what I am; and I'm going to find out, if there is any such thing. I told ...