y all the lamps are lighted."

"Why, to be sure," cried I, "there might have been a man under the
bed;" but she was too polite to notice this, and I could see she was
very much afraid of sleeping alone in that strange house, and I don't
wonder at it.

"I can walk up and down the front garden all night, if you like," said
I, "or maybe I could sleep on the drawing-room sofa, if you prefer it.
Is this the first time they have left you alone here?"

She looked at me in surprise.

"I was only engaged yesterday from the registry office in Marylebone.
This is a furnished house, and they have taken it for three months
certain. The gentleman comes from Edinburgh and the lady is an
American. They haven't got a cook yet, but hope to have one by
to-morrow. Whatever shall I do if they never come at all?"

"Oh," says I, "try on her dresses and see how they suit you. Suppose
we get the basket in to begin with. Here's a chap coming who looks as
though he could lay out sixpence if he hadn't got a shilling; we'll
enlist him and then talk about supper afterwards. Is your name Susan,
by the way? The last nice girl I met was called Susan, and so I
thought----"

"Oh, don't be silly," says she; "my name's Betsy, and if you squeeze my
hand like that, some one will see you."

I told her it must have been done in a moment of abstraction, and then
I hailed the "cab runner" who was loafing down the road; and, what with
him and a messenger boy in a hurry, we got the basket down and lifted
it into a big square hall and laid it almost at the foot of the
staircase, up which we should have to carry it presently.

Somehow or other it seemed to me over-heavy for a clothes' basket; but
I said nothing about it at the time, and, telling Betsy I would return
in a minute, I went back to my car to turn off the petrol and see that
all was shipshape. When I entered the house again, and almost as soon
as I had shut the door, the queerest thing I can remember happened to
me. It was nothing less than this--that the girl, Betsy, came toward
me with her face as white as a sheet; and, before I could utter a
single word or ask her the ghost of a question, she just slipped
headlong through my arms and lay like a dead thing.

Now, this was a nice position to be in and no mistake about it. The
girl limp and helpless in my arms, not a soul in the house, me not
knowing where to lay hands on a drop of brandy, to say nothing of a
glass of water, and, abo