d, returning, announced in an odd voice.
"It's Dick Lindley. He wants to see you."

"Me?" she murmured, wanly surprised. She was kneeling before the
fireplace, wearing an old dress which was dusted with ashes, and
upon her hands a pair of worn-out gloves of her father's. Lindley
appeared in the hall behind Hedrick, carrying under his arm
something wrapped in brown paper. His expression led her to think
that he had heard of her father's relapse, and came on that
account.

"Don't look at me, Richard," she said, smiling faintly as she
rose, and stripping her hands of the clumsy gloves. "It's good of
you to come, though. Doctor Sloane thinks he is going to be better
again."

Richard inclined his head gravely, but did not speak.

"Well," said Hedrick with a slight emphasis, "I guess I'll go out
in the yard a while." And with shining eyes he left the room.

In the hall, out of range from the library door, he executed a
triumphant but noiseless caper, and doubled with mirth, clapping
his hand over his mouth to stifle the effervescings of his joy. He
had recognized the ledger in the same wrapping in which he had
left it in Mrs. Lindley's vestibule. His moment had come: the
climax of his enormous joke, the repayment in some small measure
for the anguish he had so long endured. He crept silently back
toward the door, flattened his back against the wall, and
listened.

"Richard," he heard Laura say, a vague alarm in her voice, "what
is it? What is the matter?"

Then Lindley: "I did not know what to do about it. I couldn't
think of any sensible thing. I suppose what I am doing is the
stupidest of all the things I thought of, but at least it's
honest--so I've brought it back to you myself. Take it, please."

There was a crackling of the stiff wrapping paper, a little pause,
then a strange sound from Laura. It was not vocal and no more than
just audible: it was a prolonged scream in a whisper.

Hedrick ventured an eye at the crack, between the partly open door
and its casing. Lindley stood with his back to him, but the boy
had a clear view of Laura. She was leaning against the wall,
facing Richard, the book clutched in both arms against her bosom,
the wrapping paper on the floor at her feet.

"I thought of sending it back and pretending to think it had been
left at my mother's house by mistake," said Richard sadly, "and of
trying to make it seem that I hadn't read any of it. I thought of
a dozen ways to pretend I belie