s business? It's trouble he'll bring
to us all and no mistake!"

"That was what I feared," assented her now thoroughly composed mistress.
"So when Nixon said just now that Mr. Steele was dead, had fallen in a
fit at Hudson Three Corners or something like that--I felt such wicked
relief at finding that my experience had not meant danger to ourselves,
but to him--wicked, because it was so selfish--that I forgot myself
and cried out in the way you all heard. Blame me if you will, but don't
frighten yourselves by talking about it. If Mr. Steele is indeed dead,
we have enough to trouble us without that."

And with a last glance at me, which ended in a wavering half-deprecatory
smile, she stepped back and passed into her own room.

The mood in which I proceeded to my own quarters was as thoughtful as
any I had ever experienced.

CHAPTER XXI. THE CIPHER

Hitherto I had mainly admired Mrs. Packard's person and the extreme
charm of manner which never deserted her, no matter how she felt. Now I
found myself compelled to admire the force and quality of her mind, her
readiness to meet emergencies and the tact with which she had availed
herself of the superstition latent in the Irish temperament. For I had
no more faith in the explanation she had seen fit to give these ignorant
girls than I had in the apparition itself. Emotion such as she had shown
called for a more matter-of-fact basis than the one she had ascribed
to it. No unreal and purely superstitious reason would account for
the extreme joy and self-abandonment with which she had hailed the
possibility of Mr. Steele's death. The "no" she had given me when I
asked if she considered this man her husband's enemy had been a lying
no. To her, for some cause as yet unexplained, the secretary was a
dangerous ally to the man she loved; an ally so near and so dangerous
that the mere rumor of his death was capable of lifting her from the
depths of despondency into a state of abnormal exhilaration and hope.
Now why? What reason had she for this belief, and how was it in my power
to solve the mystery which I felt to be at the bottom of all the rest?

But one means suggested itself. I was now assured that Mrs. Packard
would never take me into her actual confidence, any more than she had
taken her husband. What I learned must be in spite of her precautions.
The cipher of which I had several specimens might, if properly read,
give me the clue I sought. I had a free hour befor