as there not been a child about the house
some time to assist the cook in errands and so on?"

"No, or I should have seen her. Besides, how would the shoes of such a
person come into William's room?"

"Easily. Secrecy was required. You were not to be disturbed; so shoes
were taken off that quiet might result."

"Was Lucetta shoeless or William or even Mother Jane? You have not told
me that you were requested to walk in stocking feet up the hall. No, Mr.
Gryce, the shoes were the shoes of a girl. I know it because it was
matched by a dress I saw hanging up in a sort of wardrobe."

"Ah! You looked into the wardrobe?"

"I did and felt justified in doing so. It was after I had spied the
shoes."

"Very good. And you saw a dress?"

"A little dress; a dress with a short skirt. It was of silk too; another
anomaly--and the color, I think, was blue, but I cannot swear to that
point. I was in great haste and took the briefest glance. But my brief
glances can be trusted, Mr. Gryce. That, I think, you are beginning to
know."

"Certainly," said he, "and as proof of it we will now act upon these two
premises--that the victim in whose burial I was an innocent partaker was
a human being and that this human being was a girl-child who came into
the house well dressed. Now where does that lead us? Into a maze, I
fear."

"We are accustomed to mazes," I observed.

"Yes," he answered somewhat gloomily, "but they are not exactly
desirable in this case. I want to find the Knollys family innocent."

"And I. But William's character, I fear, will make that impossible."

"But this girl? Who is she, and where did she come from? No girl has
been reported to us as missing from this neighborhood."

"I supposed not."

"A visitor--But no visitor could enter this house without it being known
far and wide. Why, I heard of your arrival here before I left the train
on which I followed you. Had we allowed ourselves to be influenced by
what the people about here say, we would have turned the Knollys house
inside out a week ago. But I don't believe in putting too much
confidence in the prejudice of country people. The idea they suggested,
and which you suggest without putting it too clearly into words, is much
too horrible to be acted upon without the best of reasons. Perhaps we
have found those reasons, yet I still feel like asking, Where did this
girl come from and how could she have become a prisoner in the Knollys
house without the knowled