atching up my stick I made
a rude estimate of its location, after which I replaced the brick, put
out the gas, and caught up Bess' box. Trembling, and more frightened now
than at my descent at my own footfall and tremulous pursuing shadow, I
went up-stairs.

As I passed the corridor leading to the converted vestibule which had
so excited my interest in the afternoon, I paused and made a hurried
calculation. If the stick had been three feet long, as I judged, and my
stride was thirty inches, then the place of that hole in the wall below
was directly in a line with where I now stood,--in other words, under
the vestibule floor, as I had already, suspected.

How was I to verify this without disturbing Mrs. Packard? That was a
question to sleep on. But it took me a long time to get to sleep.

CHAPTER XIV. I SEEK HELP

A bad night, a very bad night, but for all that I was down early the
next morning. Bess must have her box and I a breath of fresh air before
breakfast, to freshen me up a bit and clear my mind for the decisive
act, since my broken rest had failed to refresh me.

As I reached the parlor floor Nixon came out of the reception-room.

"Oh, Miss!" he exclaimed, "going out?" surprised, doubtless, to see me
in my hat and jacket.

"A few steps," I answered, and then stopped, not a little disturbed; for
in moving to open the door he had discovered that the key was not in it
and was showing his amazement somewhat conspicuously.

"Mrs. Packard took the key up to her room," I explained, thinking that
some sort of explanation was in order. "She is nervous, you know, and
probably felt safer with it there."

The slow shake of his head had a tinge of self-reproach in it.

"I was sorry to go out," he muttered. "I was very sorry to go out,"--but
the look which he turned upon me the next minute was of a very different
sort. "I don't see how you can go out yet," said he, "unless you go by
the back way. That leads into Stanton Street; but perhaps you had just
as lief go into Stanton Street."

There was impertinence in his voice as well as aggressiveness in his
eye, but I smiled easily enough and was turning toward the back with
every expectation of going by way of Stanton Street, when Letty came
running down the stairs with the key in her hand. I don't think he was
pleased, but he opened the door civilly enough and I gladly went out,
taking with me, however, a remembrance of the furtive look with which he
had no