Kitabı oku: «The Girl from Sunset Ranch: or, Alone in a Great City», sayfa 6

CHAPTER XII
“I MUST LEARN THE TRUTH”

Helen was already very sick of her Uncle Starkweather’s home and family. But she was too proud to show the depth of her feeling before the old serving man in whose charge she had been momentarily placed.

Lawdor was plainly pleased to wait upon her. He made fresh coffee in his own percolator; there was a cutlet kept warm upon an electric stove, and he insisted upon frying her a rasher of bacon and some eggs.

Despite all that mentally troubled her, her healthy body needed nourishment and Helen ate with an appetite that pleased the old man immensely.

“If – if you go out early, Miss, don’t forget to come here for your coffee,” he said. “Or more, if you please. I shall be happy to serve you.”

“And I’m happy to have you,” returned the girl, heartily.

She could not assume to him the rude tone and manner which she had displayed to her uncle and cousins. That had been the outcome of an impulse which had risen from the unkind expressions she had heard them use about her.

As soon as she could get away, she had ceased being an eavesdropper. But she had heard enough to assure her that her relatives were not glad to see her; that they were rude and unkind, and that they were disturbed by her presence among them.

But there was another thing she had drawn from their ill-advised talk, too. She had heard her father mentioned in no kind way. Hints were thrown out that Prince Morrell’s crime – or the crime of which he had been accused – was still remembered in New York.

Back into her soul had come that wave of feeling she experienced after her father’s death. He had been so troubled by the smirch upon his name – the cloud that had blighted his young manhood in the great city.

“I’ll know the truth,” she thought again. “I’ll find out who was guilty. They sha’n’t drive me away until I have accomplished my object in coming East.”

This was the only thought she had while she remained under old Lawdor’s eye. She had to bear up, and seem unruffled until the breakfast was disposed of and she could escape upstairs.

She went up the servants’ way. She saw the same girl she had noticed in the parlor early in the morning.

“Can you show me my room?” she asked her, timidly.

“Top o’ the next flight. Door’s open,” replied the girl, shortly.

Already the news had gone abroad among the under servants that this was a poor relation. No tips need be expected. The girl flirted her cloth and turned her back upon Helen as the latter started through the ghost walk and up the other stairway.

She easily found the room. It was quite as good as her own room at the ranch, as far as size and furniture went. Helen would have been amply satisfied with it had the room been given to her in a different spirit.

But now she closed her door, locked it carefully, hung her jacket over the knob that she should be sure she was not spied upon, and sat down beside the bed.

She was not a girl who cried often. She had wept sincere tears the evening before when she learned that Aunt Eunice was dead. But she could not weep now.

Her emotion was emphatically wrathful. Without cause – that she could see – these city relatives had maligned her – had maligned her father’s memory – and had cruelly shown her, a stranger, how they thoroughly hated her presence.

She had come away from Sunset Ranch with two well-devised ideas in her mind. First of all, she hoped to clear her father’s name of that old smirch upon it. Secondly, he had wished her to live with her relatives if possible, that she might become used to the refinements and circumstances of a more civilized life.

Refinements! Why, these cousins of hers hadn’t the decencies of red Indians!

On impulse Helen had taken the tone she had with them – had showed them in “that cowgirl” just what they had expected to find. She would be bluff and rude and ungrammatical and ill-bred. Perhaps the spirit in which Helen did this was not to be commended; but she had begun it on the impulse of the moment and she felt she must keep it up during her stay in the Starkweather house.

How long that would be Helen was not prepared to say now. It was in her heart one moment not to unpack her trunk at all. She could go to a hotel – the best in New York, if she so desired. How amazed her cousins would be if they knew that she was at this moment carrying more than eight hundred dollars in cash on her person? And suppose they learned that she owned thousands upon thousands of acres of grazing land in her own right, on which roamed unnumbered cattle and horses?

Suppose they found out that she had been schooled in a first-class institution in Denver – probably as well schooled as they themselves? What would they say? How would they feel should they suddenly make these discoveries?

But, while she sat there and studied the problem out, Helen came to at least one determination: While she remained in the Starkweather house she would keep from her uncle and cousins the knowledge of these facts.

She would not reveal her real character to them. She would continue to parade before them and before their friends the very rudeness and ignorance that they had expected her to betray.

“They are ashamed of me – let them be ashamed,” she said, to herself, bitterly. “They hate me – I’ll give them no reason for loving me, I promise you! They think me a pauper – I’ll be a pauper. Until I get ready to leave here, at least. Then I can settle with Uncle Starkweather in one lump for all the expense to which he may be put for me.

“I’ll buy no nice dresses – or hats – or anything else. They sha’n’t know I have a penny to spend. If they want to treat me like a poor relation, let them. I’ll be a poor relation.

“I must learn the truth about poor dad’s trouble,” she told herself again. “Uncle Starkweather must know something about it. I want to question him. He may be able to help me. I may get on the track of that bookkeeper. And he can tell me, surely, where to find Fenwick Grimes, father’s old partner.

“No. They shall serve me without knowing it. I will be beholden to them for my bread and butter and shelter – for a time. Let them hate and despise me. What I have to do I will do. Then I’ll ‘pay the shot,’ as Big Hen would say, and walk out and leave them.”

It was a bold determination, but not one that is to be praised. Yet, Helen had provocation for the course she proposed to pursue.

She finally unlocked her trunk and hung up the common dresses and other garments she had brought with her. She had intended to ask her cousins to take her shopping right away, and she, like any other girl of her age, longed for new frocks and pretty hats.

But there was a lot of force in Helen’s character. She would go without anything pretty unless her cousins offered to buy it themselves. She would bide her time.

One thing she hid far back in her closet under the other things – her riding habit. She knew it would give the lie to her supposed poverty. She had sent to Chicago for that, and it had cost a hundred dollars.

“But I don’t suppose there’d be a chance to ride in this big town,” she thought, with a sigh. “Unless it is hobby-horses in the park. Well! I can get on for a time without the Rose pony, or any other critter on four legs, to love me.”

But she was hungry for the companionship of the animals whom she had seen daily on the ranch.

“Why, even the yip of a coyote would be sweet,” she mused, putting her head out of the window and scanning nothing but chimneys and tin roofs, with bare little yards far below.

Finally she heard a Japanese gong’s mellow note, and presumed it must announce luncheon. It was already two o’clock. People who breakfasted at nine or ten, of course did not need a midday meal.

“I expect they don’t have supper till bedtime,” thought Helen.

First she hid her wallet in the bottom of her trunk, locked the trunk and set it up on end in the closet. Then she locked the closet door and took out the key, hiding the latter under the edge of the carpet.

“I’m getting as bad as the rest of ’em,” she muttered. “I won’t trust anybody, either. Now for meeting my dear cousins at lunch.”

She had slipped into one of the simple house dresses she had worn at the ranch. She had noticed that forenoon that both Belle and Hortense Starkweather were dressed in the most modish of gowns – as elaborate as those of fashionable ladies. With no mother to say them nay, these young girls aped every new fashion as they pleased.

Helen started downstairs at first with her usual light step. Then she bethought herself, stumbled on a stair, slipped part of the way, and continued to the very bottom of the last flight with a noise and clatter which must have announced her coming long in advance of her actual presence.

“I don’t want to play eavesdropper again,” she told herself, grimly. “I always understood that listeners hear no good of themselves, and now I know it to be a fact.”

Gregson stood at the bottom of the last flight. His face was as wooden as ever, but he managed to open his lips far enough to observe:

“Luncheon is served in the breakfast room, Miss.”

A sweep of his arm pointed the way. Then she saw old Lawdor pottering in and out of a room into which she had not yet looked.

It proved to be a sunny, small dining-room. When alone the family usually ate here, Helen discovered. The real dining-room was big enough for a dancing floor, with an enormous table, preposterously heavy furniture all around the four sides of the room, and an air of gloom that would have removed, before the food appeared, even, all trace of a healthy appetite.

When Helen entered the brighter apartment her three cousins were already before her. The noise she made coming along the hall, despite the heavy carpets, had quite prepared them for her appearance.

Belle and Hortense met her with covert smiles. And they watched their younger sister to see what impression the girl from Sunset Ranch made upon Flossie.

“And this is Flossie; is it?” cried Helen, going boisterously into the room and heading full tilt around the table for the amazed Flossie. “Why, you look like a smart young’un! And you’re only fourteen? Well, I never!”

She seized Flossie by both hands, in spite of that young lady’s desire to keep them free.

“Goodness me! Keep your paws off – do!” ejaculated Flossie, in great disgust. “And let me tell you, if I am only fourteen I’m ’most as big as you are and I know a whole lot more.”

“Why, Floss!” exclaimed Hortense, but unable to hide her amusement.

The girl from Sunset Ranch took it all with apparent good nature, however.

“I reckon you do know a lot. You’ve had advantages, you see. Girls out my way don’t have much chance, and that’s a fact. But if I stay here, don’t you reckon I’ll learn?”

The Starkweather girls exchanged glances of amusement.

“I do not think,” said Belle, calmly, “that you would better think of remaining with us for long. It would be rather bad for you, I am sure, and inconvenient for us.”

“How’s that?” demanded Helen, looking at her blankly. “Inconvenient – and with all this big house?”

“Ahem!” began Belle, copying her father. “The house is not always as free of visitors as it is now. And of course, a girl who has no means and must earn her living, should not live in luxury.”

“Why not?” asked Helen, quickly.

“Why – er – well, it would not be nice to have a working girl go in and out of our house.”

“And you think I shall have to go to work?”

“Why, of course, you may remain here – father says – until you can place yourself. But he does not believe in fostering idleness. He often says so,” said Belle, heaping it all on “poor Pa.”

Helen had taken her seat at the table and Gregson was serving. It mattered nothing to these ill-bred Starkweather girls that the serving people heard how they treated this “poor relation.”

Helen remained silent for several minutes. She tried to look sad. Within, however, she was furiously angry. But this was not the hour for her to triumph.

Flossie had been giggling for a few moments. Now she asked her cousin, saucily:

“I say! Where did you pick up that calico dress, Helen?”

“This?” returned the visitor, looking down at the rather ugly print. “It’s a gingham. Bought it ready-made in Elberon. Do you like it?”

“I love it!” giggled Flossie. “And it’s made in quite a new style, too.”

“Do you think so? Why, I reckoned it was old,” said Helen, smoothly. “But I’m glad to hear it’s so fitten to wear. For, you see, I ain’t got many clo’es.”

“Don’t you have dressmakers out there in Montana?” asked Hortense, eyeing the print garment as though it was something entirely foreign.

“I reckon. But we folks on the range don’t get much chance at ’em. Dressmakers is as scurce around Sunset Ranch as killyloo birds. Unless ye mought call Injun squaws dressmakers.”

“What are killyloo birds?” demanded Flossie, hearing something new.

“Well now! don’t you have them here?” asked Helen, smiling broadly.

“Never heard of them. And I’ve been to Bronx Park and seen all the birds in the flying cage,” said Flossie. “Our Nature teacher takes us out there frequently. It’s a dreadful bore.”

“Well, I didn’t know but you might have ’em East here,” observed Helen, pushing along the time-worn cowboy joke. “I said they was scurce around the ranch; and they be. I never saw one.”

“Really!” ejaculated Hortense. “What are killyloo birds good for?”

“Why, near as I ever heard,” replied Helen, chuckling, “they are mostly used for making folks ask questions.”

“I declare!” snapped Belle. “She is laughing at you, girls. You’re very dense, I’m sure, Hortense.”

“Say! that’s a good one!” laughed Flossie. But Hortense muttered:

“Vulgar little thing!”

Helen smiled tranquilly upon them. Nothing they said to her could shake her calm. And once in a while – as in the case above – she “got back” at them. She kept consistently to her rude way of speaking; but she used the tableware with little awkwardness, and Belle said to Hortense:

“At least somebody’s tried to teach her a few things. She is no sword-swallower.”

“I suppose Aunt Mary had some refinement,” returned Hortense, languidly.

Helen’s ears were preternaturally sharp. She heard everything. But she had such good command of her features that she showed no emotion at these side remarks.

After luncheon the three sisters separated for their usual afternoon amusements. Neither of them gave a thought to Helen’s loneliness. They did not ask her what she was going to do, or suggest anything to her save that, an hour later, when Belle saw her cousin preparing to leave the house in the same dress she had worn at luncheon, she cried:

“Oh, Helen, do go out and come in by the lower door; will you? The basement door, you know.”

“Sure!” replied Helen, cheerfully. “Saves the servants work, I suppose, answering the bell.”

But she knew as well as Belle why the request was made. Belle was ashamed to have her appear to be one of the family. If she went in and out by the servants’ door it would not look so bad.

Helen walked over to the avenue and looked at the frocks in the store windows. By their richness she saw that in this neighborhood, at least, to refit in a style which would please her cousins would cost quite a sum of money.

“I won’t do it!” she told herself, stubbornly. “If they want me to look well enough to go in and out of the front door, let them suggest buying something for me.”

She went back to the Starkweather mansion in good season; but she entered, as she had been told, by the area door. One of the maids let her in and tossed her head when she saw what an out-of-date appearance this poor relation of her master made.

“Sure,” this girl said to the cook, “if I didn’t dress better nor her when I went out, I’d wait till afther dark, so I would!”

Helen heard this, too. But she was a girl who could stick to her purpose. Criticism should not move her, she determined; she would continue to play her part.

“Mr. Starkweather is in the den, Miss,” said the housekeeper, meeting Helen on the stairs. “He has asked for you.”

Mrs. Olstrom was a very grim person, indeed. If she had shown the girl from the ranch some little kindliness the night before, she now hid it all very successfully.

Helen returned to the lower floor and sought that room in which she had had her first interview with her relatives. Mr. Starkweather was alone. He looked more than a little disturbed; and of the two he was the more confused.

“Ahem! I feel that we must have a serious talk together, Helen,” he said, in his pompous manner. “It – it will be quite necessary – ahem!”

“Sure!” returned the girl. “Glad to. I’ve got some serious things to ask you, too, sir.”

“Eh? Eh?” exclaimed the gentleman, worried at once.

“You fire ahead, sir,” said Helen, sitting down and crossing one knee over the other in a boyish fashion. “My questions will wait.”

“I – ahem! – I wish to know who suggested your coming here to New York?”

“My father,” replied Helen, simply and truthfully.

“Your father?” The reply evidently both surprised and discomposed Mr. Starkweather. “I do not understand. Your – your father is dead – ”

“Yes, sir. It was just before he died.”

“And he told you to come here to – to us?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But why?” demanded the gentleman with some warmth.

“Dad said as how you folks lived nice, and knew all about refinement and eddication and all that. He wanted me to have a better chance than what I could get on the ranch.”

Mr. Starkweather glared at her in amazement. He was not at all a kind-hearted man; but he was very cowardly. He had feared her answer would be quite different from this, and now took courage.

“Do you mean to say that merely this expressed wish that you might live at – ahem! – at my expense, and as my daughters live, brought you here to New York?”

“That begun it, Uncle,” said Helen, coolly.

“Preposterous! What could Prince Morrell be thinking of? Why should I support you, Miss?”

“Why, that don’t matter so much,” remarked Helen, calmly. “I can earn my keep, I reckon. If there’s nothing to do in the house I’ll go and find me a job and pay my board. But, you see, dad thought I ought to have the refining influences of city life. Good idea; eh?”

“A very ridiculous idea! A very ridiculous idea, indeed!” cried Mr. Starkweather. “I never heard the like.”

“Well, you see, there’s another reason why I came, too, Uncle,” Helen said, blandly.

“What’s that?” demanded the gentleman, startled again.

“Why, dad told me everything when he died. He – he told me how he got into trouble before he left New York – ’way back there before I was born,” spoke Helen, softly. “It troubled dad all his life, Uncle Starkweather. Especially after mother died. He feared he had not done right by her and me, after all, in running away when he was not guilty – ”

“Not guilty!”

“Not guilty,” repeated Helen, sternly. “Of course, we all know that. Somebody got all that money the firm had in bank; but it was not my father, sir.”

She gazed straight into the face of Mr. Starkweather. He did not seem to be willing to look at her in return; nor could he pluck up the courage to deny her statement.

“I see,” he finally murmured.

“That is the second reason that has brought me to New York,” said Helen, more softly. “And it is the more important reason. If you don’t care to have me here, Uncle, I will find work that will support me, and live elsewhere. But I must learn the truth about that old story against father. I sha’n’t leave New York until I have cleared his name.”

CHAPTER XIII
SADIE AGAIN

Mr. Starkweather appeared to recover his equanimity. He looked askance at his niece, however, as she announced her intention.

“You are very young and very foolish, Helen – ahem! A mystery of sixteen or seventeen years’ standing, which the best detectives could not unravel, is scarcely a task to be attempted by a mere girl.”

“Who else is there to do it?” Helen demanded, quickly. “I mean to find out the truth, if I can. I want you to tell me all you know, and I want you to tell me how to find Fenwick Grimes – ”

“Nonsense, nonsense, girl!” exclaimed her uncle, testily. “What good would it do you to find Grimes?”

“He was the other partner in the concern. He had just as good a chance to steal the money as father.”

“Ridiculous! Mr. Grimes was away from the city at the time.”

“Then you do remember all about it, sir?” asked Helen, quickly.

“Ahem! That fact had not slipped my mind,” replied her uncle, weakly.

“And then, there was Allen Chesterton, the bookkeeper. Was a search ever made for him?”

“High and low,” returned her uncle, promptly. “But nobody ever heard of him thereafter.”

“And why did the shadow of suspicion not fall upon him as strongly as it did upon my father?” cried the girl, dropping, in her earnestness, her assumed uncouthness of speech.

“Perhaps it did – perhaps it did,” muttered Mr. Starkweather. “Yes, of course it did! They both ran away, you see – ”

“Didn’t you advise dad to go away – until the matter could be cleared up?” demanded Helen.

“Why – I – ahem!”

“Both you and Mr. Grimes advised it,” went on the girl, quite firmly. “And father did so because of the effect his arrest might have upon mother in her delicate health. Wasn’t that the way it was?”

“I – I presume that is so,” agreed Mr. Starkweather.

“And it was wrong,” declared the girl, with all the confidence of youth. “Poor dad realized it before he died. It made all the firm’s creditors believe that he was guilty. No matter what he did thereafter – ”

“Stop, girl!” exclaimed Mr. Starkweather. “Don’t you know that if you stir up this old business the scandal will all come to light? Why – why, even my name might be attached to it.”

“But poor dad suffered under the blight of it all for more than sixteen years.”

“Ahem! It is a fact. It was a great misfortune. Perhaps he was advised wrongly,” said Mr. Starkweather, with trembling lips. “But I want you to understand, Helen, that if he had not left the city he would undoubtedly have been in a cell when you were born.”

“I don’t know that that would have killed me – especially, if by staying here, he might have come to trial and been freed of suspicion.”

“But he could not be freed of suspicion.”

“Why not? I don’t see that the evidence was conclusive,” declared the girl, hotly. “At least, he knew of none such. And I want to know now every bit of evidence that could be brought against him.”

“Useless! Useless!” muttered her uncle, wiping his brow.

“It is not useless. My father was accused of a crime of which he wasn’t guilty. Why, his friends here – those who knew him in the old days – will think me the daughter of a criminal!”

“But you are not likely to meet any of them – ”

“Why not?” demanded Helen, quickly.

“Surely you do not expect to remain here in New York long enough for that?” said Uncle Starkweather, exasperated. “I tell you, I cannot permit it.”

“I must learn what I can about that old trouble before I go back – if I go back to Montana at all,” declared his niece, doggedly.

Mr. Starkweather was silent for a few moments. He had begun the discussion with the settled intention of telling Helen that she must return at once to the West. But he knew he had no real right of control over the girl, and to claim one would put him at the disadvantage, perhaps, of being made to support her.

He saw she was a very determined creature, young as she was. If he antagonized her too much, she might, indeed, go out and get a position to support herself and remain a continual thorn in the side of the family.

So he took another tack. He was not a successful merchant and real estate operator for nothing. He said:

“I do not blame you, Helen, for wishing that that old cloud over your father’s name might be dissipated. I wish so, too. But, remember, long ago your – ahem! – your aunt and I, as well as Fenwick Grimes, endeavored to get to the bottom of the mystery. Detectives were hired. Everything possible was done. And to no avail.”

She watched him narrowly, but said nothing.

“So, how can you be expected to do now what was impossible when the matter was fresh?” pursued her uncle, suavely. “If I could help you – ”

“You can,” declared the girl, suddenly.

“Will you tell me how?” he asked, in a rather vexed tone.

“By telling me where to find Mr. Grimes,” said Helen.

“Why – er – that is easily done, although I have had no dealings with Mr. Grimes for many years. But if he is at home – he travels over the country a great deal – I can give you a letter to him and he will see you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You are determined to try to rake up all this trouble?”

“I will see Mr. Grimes. And I will try to find Allen Chesterton.”

“Out of the question!” cried her uncle. “Chesterton is dead. He dropped out of sight long ago. A strange character at best, I believe. And if he was the thief – ”

“Well, sir?”

“He certainly would not help you convict himself.”

“Not intentionally, sir,” admitted Helen.

“I never did see such an opinionated girl,” cried Mr. Starkweather, in sudden wrath.

“I’m sorry, sir, if I trouble you. If you don’t want me here – ”

Now, her uncle had decided that it would not be safe to have the girl elsewhere in New York. At least, if she was under his roof, he could keep track of her activities. He began to be a little afraid of this very determined, unruffled young woman.

“She’s a little savage! No knowing what she might do, after all,” he thought.

Finally he said aloud: “Well, Helen, I will do what I can. I will communicate with Mr. Grimes and arrange for you to visit him – soon. I will tell you – ahem! – in the near future, all I can recollect of the affair. Will that satisfy you?”

“I will take it very kindly of you, Uncle,” said Helen non-committally.

“And when you are satisfied of the impossibility of your doing yourself, or your father’s name, any good in this direction, I shall expect you to close your visit in the East here and return to your friends in Montana.”

She nodded, looking at him with a strange expression on her shrewd face.

“You mean to help me as a sort of a bribe,” she observed, slowly. “To pay you I am to return home and never trouble you any more?”

“Well – er – ahem!”

“Is that it, Uncle Starkweather?”

“You see, my dear,” he began again, rather red in the face, but glad that he was getting out of a bad corner so easily, “you do not just fit in, here, with our family life. You see it yourself, perhaps?”

“Perhaps I do, sir,” replied the girl from Sunset Ranch.

“You would be quite at a disadvantage beside my girls – ahem! You would not be happy here. And of course, you haven’t a particle of claim upon us.”

“No, sir; not a particle,” repeated Helen.

“So you see, all things considered, it would be much better for you to return to your own people – ahem —own people,” said Mr. Starkweather, with emphasis. “Now – er – you are rather shabby, I fear, Helen. I am not as rich a man as you may suppose. But I – The fact is, the girls are ashamed of your appearance,” he pursued, without looking at her, and opening his bill case.

“Here is ten dollars. I understand that a young miss like you can be fitted very nicely to a frock downtown for less than ten dollars. I advise you to go out to-morrow and find yourself a more up-to-date frock than – than that one you have on, for instance.

“Somebody might see you come into the house – ahem! – some of our friends, I mean, and they would not understand. Get a new dress, Helen. While you are here look your best. Ahem! We all must give the hostage of a neat appearance to society.”

“Yes, sir,” said Helen, simply.

She took the money. Her throat had contracted so that she could not thank him for it in words. But she retained a humble, thankful attitude, and it sufficed.

He cared nothing about hurting the feelings of the girl. He did not even inquire – in his own mind – if she had any feelings to be hurt! He was so self-centred, so pompous, so utterly selfish, that he never thought how he might wrong other people.

Willets Starkweather was very tenacious of his own dignity and his own rights. But for the rights of others he cared not at all. And there was not an iota of tenderness in his heart for the orphan who had come so trustingly across the continent and put herself in his charge. Indeed, aside from a feeling of something like fear of Helen, he betrayed no interest in her at all.

Helen went out of the room without a further word. She was more subdued that evening at dinner than she had been before. She did not break out in rude speeches, nor talk very much. But she was distinctly out of her element – or so her cousins thought – at their dinner table.

“I tell you what it is, girls,” Belle, the oldest cousin, said after the meal and when Helen had gone up to her room without being invited to join the family for the evening, “I tell you what it is: If we chance to have company to dinner while she remains, I shall send a tray up to her room with her dinner on it. I certainly could not bear to have the Van Ramsdens, or the De Vornes, see her at our table.”

“Quite true,” agreed Hortense. “We never could explain having such a cousin.”

“Horrors, no!” gasped Flossie.

Helen had found a book in the library, and she lit the gas in her room (there was no electricity on this upper floor) and forgot her troubles and unhappiness in following the fortunes of the heroine of her story-book. It was late when she heard the maids retire. They slept in rooms opening out of a side hall.

By and by – after the clock in the Metropolitan tower had struck the hour of eleven – Helen heard the rustle and step outside her door which she had heard in the corridor downstairs. She crept to her door, after turning out her light, and opening it a crack, listened.

Had somebody gone downstairs? Was that a rustling dress in the corridor down there – the ghost walk? Did she hear again the “step – put; step – put” that had puzzled her already?

She did not like to go out into the hall and, perhaps, meet one of the servants. So, after a time, she went back to her book.

But the incident had given her a distaste for reading. She kept listening for the return of the ghostly step. So she undressed and went to bed. Long afterward (or so it seemed to her, for she had been asleep and slept soundly) she was aroused again by the “step – put; step – put” past her door.