liberately left the door wide
open, but no intrusion occurred. Once I got up and glanced down the
stairs. For all his apparent drowsiness, Davidson heard my cautious
movements, and saluted me in a husky whisper.

"Have you got any quinine?" he said. "I'm sneezing my head off."

But I had none. I gave him a box of cigarettes, and after partially
dressing, I threw myself across the bed to wait for daylight. I was
roused by the sun beating on my face, to hear Miss Letitia's tones from
her room across.

"Nonsense," she was saying querulously. "Don't you suppose I can smell?
Do you think because I'm a little hard of hearing that I've lost my
other senses? Somebody's been smoking."

"It's me," Heppie shouted. "I--"

"You?" Miss Letitia snarled. "What are you smoking for? That ain't my
shirt; it's my--"

"I ain't smokin'," yelled Heppie. "You won't let me tell you. I spilled
vinegar on the stove; that's what you smell."

Miss Letitia's sardonic chuckle came through the door.

"Vinegar," she said with scorn. "Next thing you'll be telling me it's
vinegar that Harry and Mr. Knox carry around in little boxes in their
pockets. You've pinned my cap to my scalp."

I hurried down-stairs to find Davidson gone. My blanket lay neatly
folded, on the lower step, and the horsehair chairs were ranged along
the wall as before. I looked around anxiously for telltale ashes, but
there was none, save, at the edge of the spotless register, a trace.
Evidently they had followed the apple parings. It grew cold a day or so
later, and Miss Letitia had the furnace fired, and although it does not
belong to my story, she and Heppie searched the house over to account
for the odor of baking apples--a mystery that was never explained.

Wardrop did not appear at breakfast. Margery came down-stairs as Bella
was bringing me my coffee, and dropped languidly into her chair. She
looked tired and white.

"Another day!" she said wearily. "Did you ever live through such an
eternity as the last thirty-six hours?"

I responded absently; the duty I had assumed hung heavy over me. I had a
frantic impulse to shirk the whole thing: to go to Wardrop and tell him
it was his responsibility, not mine, to make this sad-eyed girl sadder
still. That as I had not his privilege of comforting her, neither should
I shoulder his responsibility of telling her. But the issue was forced
on me sooner than I had expected, for at that moment I saw the glaring
head-lines of th