s
figure standing in an attitude of mingled shame and sympathy by the
half-open door.

"Oh, Miss Althorpe!" she entreated, "I pray you to excuse me. I did not
know you wanted me. I have been asleep."

"It is this lady who wants you," answered Miss Althorpe. "She is a
friend of mine and one in whom you can confide."

"Confide!" This was a word to rouse her. She turned livid, and in her
eyes as she looked my way both terror and surprise were visible. "Why
should you think I had anything to confide? If I had, I should not pass
by you, Miss Althorpe, for another."

There were tears in her voice, and I had to remember the victim just
laid away in Woodlawn, not to bestow much more compassion on this woman
than she rightfully deserved. She had a magnetic voice and a magnetic
presence, but that was no reason why I should forget what she had done.

"No one asks for your confidence," I protested, "though it might not
hurt you to accept a friend whenever you can get one. I merely wish, as
I said before, to give you a message from Mrs. Desberger, under whose
roof you stayed before coming here."

"I am obliged to you," she responded, rising to her feet, and trembling
very much. "Mrs. Desberger is a kind woman; what does she want of me?"

So I was on the right track; she acknowledged Mrs. Desberger.

"Nothing but to return you this. It fell out of your pocket while you
were dressing." And I handed her the little red pin-cushion I had taken
from the Van Burnams' front room.

She looked at it, shrunk violently back, and with difficulty prevented
herself from showing the full depth of her feelings.

"I don't know anything about it. It is not mine, I don't know it!" And
her hair stirred on her forehead as she gazed at the small object lying
in the palm of my hand, proving to me that she saw again before her all
the horrors of the house from which it had been taken.

"Who are _you_?" she suddenly demanded, tearing her eyes from this
simple little cushion and fixing them wildly on my face. "Mrs. Desberger
never sent me this. I----"

"You are right to stop there," I interposed, and then paused, feeling
that I had forced a situation which I hardly knew how to handle.

The instant's pause she had given herself seemed to restore her
self-possession. Leaving me, she moved towards Miss Althorpe.

"I don't know who this lady is," said she, "or what her errand here with
me may mean. But I hope that it is nothing that will force me