in the house was very, very still.

At last she heard a sound. "She's coming," she thought, thankfully,
but all at once she became conscious that the sound was not in the
upper hall, but down-stairs on the porch.

There was the quick patter of little feet, and then an appealing whine.

"Why, it's a dog," said Anne, sitting up straight, "It's a dog."

She got up and looked out of the window. A little short-eared,
stubby-tailed Boston terrier was running back and forth on the sand,
anxiously.

Anne was a tender-hearted lover of animals, and his apparent distress
appealed to her.

"I'll go down and see what's the matter with him," she decided,
thrusting her feet into her slippers and tying the ribbons of her pink
dressing-gown.

She flew down the long dark hall to the top of the steps that led
below, and there she stopped still, with her hand on her heart.

The fire in the hall was still burning, and the flames wavered fitfully
over the great picture above the mantel, and on the jar of red roses in
front of it. The rest of the hall was in the shadow, and darker than
the shadows, Anne had made out the figure of a man standing on the
threshold.

As she gazed, he crossed the room and stood in front of the fire, his
eyes raised to the great picture. Suddenly he leaned forward and took
one of the red roses from the jar.

"He is even stealing the roses," thought Anne, indignantly, but then,
what could you expect of a man who would carry off boxes of candy and
thimbles and kittens?

She was sure it was the Durant burglar, and she dropped to the floor
cautiously, and crouched there. Outside she could still hear the whine
of the dog, but she had no thought of going to him now--she could not
pass that silent figure on the rug.

Then, all at once, she thought of Judy. She was in the library, and
there was just one room between her and the burglar!

Anne wasn't brave, and never had been, but in that moment she forgot
herself, forgot everything but that Judy was not well and must not be
frightened at any cost. Judy must not see the burglar.

As the man moved across the hall Anne staggered to her feet, feeling
along the wall for the electric button, and then suddenly the lights
flared up, and the little girl, a desperate pink figure clinging to the
stair-rail, looked down into the upraised face of the man below.

"Don't," she said, with white lips, "don't--go--in--there--"

As she stared at him in a blur of fr