p had he not virtually lifted her up. He took her directly to the
library and laid her on the sofa. The fire, owing to the absence of
McVay, had gone out. It took Geoffrey some time with his benumbed hands
to build a blaze. When he turned toward her again she was sleeping like
a child.

The sight was too much for his own weariness, and reflecting that McVay
was either gone or still safe, he stretched himself on the hearth-rug
and was soon asleep also.

IV

It was after two o'clock in the afternoon when he awoke. He must have
slept three hours. He looked at the sofa and saw the girl still sleeping
peacefully. He almost wished that she would never awake to all the
dreadful surprises that the house held for her. Her eye-lashes curved
long and dark on her cheek. Geoffrey turned away quickly.

He had awakened with a sudden disagreeable conviction that people have
been known to smother to death in closets. He stole quietly from the
library and ran up stairs with not a little anxiety. Indeed so great was
his dread that he would have been really relieved to see the closet door
standing open as an immediate proof that it did not hide a corpse. It
was, however, locked as he had left it. But as he hastened to undo it, a
voice from within reassured him:

[Illustration: HE LET MCVAY OUT OF THE CLOSET]

"Well, where have you been all this time?"

"You may be thankful I'm back at all. It did not look like it, at one
time."

"Where is Cecilia?"

"Down stairs asleep."

McVay gave a little giggle. "Ah," he said, "I bet you have had the devil
of a time. I bet you wished once or twice that you had let me be the one
to go."

"It wasn't child's play."

"Child's play! I rather think not. These things are all well enough
among men, but women!" he waved his hand; "so sensitive, so cloistered!"

"Your sister behaved nobly," said Geoffrey severely.

"Bound to, Holland, bound to. Still it must have been a shock."

"It was a hard trip for any woman."

McVay looked up. "Oh," he said, "I wasn't speaking of the trip. I meant
about me. What did she say?"

"She did not say anything. She went to sleep."

"She did not say anything when you told her I was booked for the
penitentiary?"

"Oh," said Geoffrey, and there was a slight pause. Then he added: "Why
should I tell her what she must know."

"I tell you she knows nothing about my--profession."

"Your _profession_!"

"Hasn't a notion of it."

"What, with my sister'