Some time after four o’clock my door was unlocked from without; the bolt slipped as noiselessly as it had been shot. I got a little sleep until seven, when the boys trotted into my room in their bathrobes and slippers and perched on my bed.

“It’s a nice day,” observed Harry, the elder. “Is that bump your feet?”

I wriggled my toes and assured him he had surmised correctly.

“You’re pretty long, aren’t you? Do you think we can play in the fountain to-day?”

“We’ll make a try for it, son. It will do us all good to get out into the sunshine.”

“We always took Chang for a walk every day, Mademoiselle and Chang and Freddie and I.”

Freddie had found my cap on the dressing table and had put it on his yellow head. But now, on hearing the beloved name of his pet, he burst into loud grief-stricken howls.

“Want Mam’selle,” he cried. “Want Chang too. Poor Freddie!”

The children were adorable. I bathed and dressed them and, mindful of my predecessor’s story of crackers and milk, prepared for an excursion kitchenward. The nights might be full of mystery, murder might romp from room to room, but I intended to see that the youngsters 24 breakfasted. But before I was ready to go down breakfast arrived.

Perhaps the other nurse had told the Reeds a few plain truths before she left; perhaps, and this I think was the case, the cloud had lifted just a little. Whatever it may have been, two rather flushed and blistered young people tapped at the door that morning and were admitted, Mr. Reed first, with a tray, Mrs. Reed following with a coffee-pot and cream.

The little nursery table was small for five, but we made room somehow. What if the eggs were underdone and the toast dry? The children munched blissfully. What if Mr. Reed’s face was still drawn and haggard and his wife a limp little huddle on the floor? She sat with her head against his knee and her eyes on the little boys, and drank her pale coffee slowly. She was very tired, poor thing. She dropped asleep sitting there, and he sat for a long time, not liking to disturb her.

It made me feel homesick for the home I didn’t have. I’ve had the same feeling before, of being a rank outsider, a sort of defrauded feeling. I’ve had it when I’ve seen the look in a man’s eyes when his wife comes-to after an operation. And I’ve had it, for that matter, when I’ve put a new baby in its mother’s arms for the first time. I had it for sure that morning, while she slept there and he stroked her pretty hair.

I put in my plea for the children then.

“It’s bright and sunny,” I argued. “And if you are nervous I’ll keep them away from other children. But if you want to keep them well you must give them exercise.”

It was the argument about keeping them well that 25 influenced him, I think. He sat silent for a long time. His wife was still asleep, her lips parted.

“Very well,” he said finally, “from two to three, Miss Adams. But not in the garden back of the house. Take them on the street.”

I agreed to that.

“I shall want a short walk every evening myself,” I added. “That is a rule of mine. I am a more useful person and a more agreeable one if I have it.”

I think he would have demurred if he dared. But one does not easily deny so sane a request. He yielded grudgingly.

That first day was calm and quiet enough. Had it not been for the strange condition of the house and the necessity for keeping the children locked in I would have smiled at my terror of the night. Luncheon was sent in; so was dinner. The children and I lunched and supped alone. As far as I could see, Mrs. Reed made no attempt at housework; but the cot at the head of the stairs disappeared in the early morning and the dog did not howl again.

I took the boys out for an hour in the early afternoon. Two incidents occurred, both of them significant. I bought myself a screw driver—that was one. The other was our meeting with a slender young woman in black who knew the boys and stopped them. She proved to be one of the dismissed servants—the waitress, she said.

“Why, Freddie!” she cried. “And Harry too! Aren’t you going to speak to Nora?”

After a moment or two she turned to me, and I felt she wanted to say something, but hardly dared.

“How is Mrs. Reed?” she asked. “Not sick, I hope?”
26

She glanced at my St. Luke’s cloak and bonnet.

“No, she is quite well.”

“And Mr. Reed?”

“Quite well also.”

“Is Mademoiselle still there?”

“No, there is no one there but the family. There are no maids in the house.”

She stared at me curiously.

“Mademoiselle has gone? Are you cer—— Excuse me, Miss. But I thought she would never go. The children were like her own.”

“She is not there, Nora.”

She stood for a moment debating, I thought. Then she burst out:

“Mr. Reed made a mistake, miss. You can’t take a houseful of first-class servants and dismiss them the way he did, without half an hour to get out bag and baggage, without making talk. And there’s talk enough all through the neighborhood.”

“What sort of talk?”

“Different people say different things. They say Mademoiselle is still there, locked in her room on the third floor. There’s a light there sometimes, but nobody sees her. And other folks say Mr. Reed is crazy. And there is worse being said than that.”

But she refused to tell me any more—evidently concluded she had said too much and got away as quickly as she could, looking rather worried.

I was a trifle over my hour getting back, but nothing was said. To leave the clean and tidy street for the disordered house was not pleasant. But once in the children’s suite, with the goldfish in the aquarium darting like 27 tongues of flame in the sunlight, with the tulips and hyacinths of the window-boxes glowing and the orderly toys on their white shelves, I felt comforted. After all, disorder and dust did not imply crime.

But one thing I did that afternoon—did it with firmness and no attempt at secrecy, and after asking permission of no one. I took the new scre............