odd, for usually everything about the cottage was
conspicuously trim.

The door was standing wide open, and everything was still. But giving
that usually orderly hall an odd look--it was about half-past two
in the afternoon--was a pile of three dirty plates, with used knives
and forks upon them, on one of the hall chairs.

I went into the hall, looked into either room, and hesitated.

Then I fell to upon the door-knocker and gave a loud rat-tat-too,
and followed this up with an amiable "Hel-lo!"

For a time no one answered me, and I stood listening and expectant,
with my fingers about my weapon. Some one moved about upstairs
presently, and was still again. The tension of waiting seemed to
brace my nerves.

I had my hand on the knocker for the second time, when Puss appeared
in the doorway.

For a moment we remained staring at one another without speaking.
Her hair was disheveled, her face dirty, tear-stained, and irregularly
red. Her expression at the sight of me was pure astonishment.
I thought she was about to say something, and then she had darted
away out of the house again.

"I say, Puss!" I said. "Puss!"

I followed her out of the door. "Puss! What's the matter? Where's
Nettie?"

She vanished round the corner of the house.

I hesitated, perplexed whether I should pursue her. What did it
all mean? Then I heard some one upstairs.

"Willie!" cried the voice of Mrs. Stuart. "Is that you?"

"Yes," I answered. "Where's every one? Where's Nettie? I want to
have a talk with her."

She did not answer, but I heard her dress rustle as she moved. I
Judged she was upon the landing overhead.

I paused at the foot of the stairs, expecting her to appear and
come down.

Suddenly came a strange sound, a rush of sounds, words jumbled
and hurrying, confused and shapeless, borne along upon a note of
throaty distress that at last submerged the words altogether and
ended in a wail. Except that it came from a woman's throat it was
exactly the babbling sound of a weeping child with a grievance. "I
can't," she said, "I can't," and that was all I could distinguish.
It was to my young ears the strangest sound conceivable from a
kindly motherly little woman, whom I had always thought of chiefly
as an unparalleled maker of cakes. It frightened me. I went upstairs
at once in a state of infinite alarm, and there she was upon the
landing, leaning forward over the top of the chest of drawers beside
her open bedroom door, and