ir as she countered,

"Is it a stairway? It might be a ladder, you know."

It was a ladder, an iron ladder, as I found when I ushered them in. My
eyes snapped inquiry at her.

"Very simple," she said. Worth was pushing aside pails and boxes to make
a better way for her to the ladder's foot. "There wouldn't be a roof
scuttle in the rented rooms, so I knew when you called in to tell us
there was none in the halls."

"I didn't. I said nothing of the sort." Where was the girl's fine memory
that she couldn't recollect a man's words for the little time I'd been
gone! "All I said was, 'Just a minute and I'll be back.'"

"Yes, that's all you said to Worth." She glanced at the boy serenely as
he waited for her at the ladder's foot. "He's not a trained observer; he
doesn't deduce even from what he does observe." There were twinkling
lights in her black eyes. "But what your hurried trip to the office said
to me was that you'd gone for the key of the room that led to the
roof scuttle."

Well, that was reasonable--simple enough, too; but,

"This room? How did you find it?"

She stepped to the open door and placed the tip of a gloved finger on
the nickeled naught that marked the panels.

"The significant zero again, Mr. Boyne," she laughed. "Here it means the
room is not a tenanted one, and is therefore the way to the roof. Shall
we go there?"

"Well, young lady," I said as I led her along the trail Worth had
cleared, "it must be almost as bad to see everything that way--in minute
detail--as to be blind."

"Carry on!" Worth called from the top of the ladder, reaching down to
aid the girl. She laughed back at me as she started the short climb.

"Not at all bad! You others seem to me only half awake to what is about
you--only half living," and she placed her hand in the strong one held
down to her. As Worth passed her through the scuttle to the roof, I saw
her glance carelessly at the hooks and staples, the clumsy but adequate
arrangement for locking the hatch, and, following her, gave them more
careful attention, wondering what she had seen--plenty that I did not,
no doubt. They had no tale to tell my eyes.

Once outside, she stopped a minute with Worth to adjust herself to the
sharp wind which swept across from the north. Here was a rectangular
space surrounded by walls which ran around its four sides to form the
coping, unbroken in any spot; a gravel-and-tar roof, almost flat, with
the scuttle and a few small, dust c