I lit a match and saw that Lucy was not in the room. The bedroom door was shut but not locked, as I had left it. I did not want to wake Lucy's mother, who has been rather ill lately. So I quickly put on some clothes and got ready to look for Lucy myself. As I was leaving the room I had the idea that Lucy's clothes might give me a clue of what she was doing. A dressing-gown would mean she was in the house, but she might wear a dress outside. But the dressing-gown and dress were both still in the wardrobe. "Thank God," I said to myself, "she cannot be far away, because she is only in her nightdress."

I ran downstairs and looked in the sitting room. Lucy was not there! Then I looked in all the other rooms of the house, and became more and more frightened when I could not find her anywhere. Finally, I came to the hall door and found it open. It was not wide open, but the it was not properly locked either. The people of the house are careful to lock the door properly every night, so I feared that Lucy must have gone outside in her nightdress. There was no time to think of what might happen. I was almost too frightened to think clearly. I put a big, heavy shawl on my shoulders and ran out of the house. The clock was striking one o'clock when I ran into the street, and there was nobody in sight.