ars comforted her.
Casting one final look at the table, which was far from uninvitingly
set, she slipped out and I was left to contemplate the dozen or so
photographs that covered the walls. I found them so atrocious and their
arrangement so distracting to my bump of order, which is of a pronounced
character, that I finally shut my eyes on the whole scene, and in this
attitude began to piece my thoughts together. But before I had proceeded
far, steps were heard in the shop, and the next moment the door flew
open and in popped Mrs. Boppert, with a face like a peony in full
blossom. She stopped when she saw me and stared.

"Why, if it isn't the lady----"

"Hush! Shut the door. I have something very particular to say to you."

"O," she began, looking as if she wanted to back out. But I was too
quick for her. I shut the door myself and, taking her by the arm, seated
her in the corner.

"You don't show much gratitude," I remarked.

I did not know what she had to be grateful to me for, but she had so
plainly intimated at our first interview that she regarded me as having
done her some favor, that I was disposed to make what use of it I could,
to gain her confidence.

"I know, ma'am, but if you could see how I've been harried, ma'am. It's
the murder, and nothing but the murder all the time; and it was to get
away from the talk about it that I came here, ma'am, and now it's you I
see, and you'll be talking about it too, or why be in such a place as
this, ma'am?"

"And what if I do talk about it? You know I'm your friend, or I never
would have done you that good turn the morning we came upon the poor
girl's body."

"I know, ma'am, and grateful I am for it, too; but I've never understood
it, ma'am. Was it to save me from being blamed by the wicked police, or
was it a dream you had, and the gentleman had, for I've heard what he
said at the inquest, and it's muddled my head till I don't know where
I'm standing."

What I had said and what the gentleman had said! What did the poor thing
mean? As I did not dare to show my ignorance, I merely shook my head.

"Never mind what caused us to speak as we did, as long as we helped
_you_. And we did help you? The police never found out what you had to
do with this woman's death, did they?"

"No, ma'am, O no, ma'am. When such a respectable lady as you said that
you saw the young lady come into the house in the middle of the night,
how was they to disbelieve it. They never asked m