loor lay Miss
Cooper--lifeless, was my first horrified thought. Stodger, with the
best of intensions and the least possible capacity for carrying them
out, knelt helplessly beside her, under the delusion that he was
rendering first aid.

Instantly I lifted the still form from the floor and pillowed the sunny
brown tresses in the hollow of my arm. How light she was! How soft!
How lovely and tender! It was wonderful--a sublime revelation--thus to
feel the actual contact of her warm, yielding body.

But Heaven knows, I did n't stop to analyze my feelings at the time.
For a while I was shaken, panic-stricken, utterly unable to do more
than stare numbly down at the sweet pale face, framed in its nimbus of
wavy brown hair. I got a grip on myself, though, and Stodger was sent
flying to fetch Miss Fluette.

She came quickly enough, wondering and alarmed; and when she beheld me
holding her cousin, would have snatched her from me--with what biting
words I can only imagine.

But for once in her life, at least, that proud, wilful young lady bowed
without a murmur to the tone of authority; for one brief moment she
stared at me astounded, and in the next, as comprehension dawned,
melted. It is hard to say which of her two attitudes was the more
impressive: the flaming anger provoked by the sight of the unconscious
girl in my arms, or the tenderly sweet manner with which she presently
turned to minister to her. The voice which bade me leave Genevieve to
her care was actually gentle. Very reluctantly, I withdrew with
Stodger into the hall. Before I closed the door, however, I tersely
charged Miss Belle to give me as soon as possible the explanation of
the mystery.

The door closed, I turned upon my unoffending associate rather angrily,
I 'm ashamed to say; but Stodger's good-nature was imperturbable. He
could tell me absolutely nothing that threw light upon whatever
terrifying experience Miss Cooper had undergone.

He had remained at the spot where I had last seen him, he said; a
position he had assumed purposely, because from there he had a view of
practically the entire second story. He had opened all the doors so
that the slightest sound or movement in any of the chambers could not
fail to attract his attention. Immediately behind him, by simply
turning his head, he could see through the bath room, across the
landing at the top of the rear stairs, and into the small sewing-room
beyond. To right and left--east an