like a suppressed oath.

He would have shut the door upon me had I not been quicker than
lightning. As it was, I got in before it slammed, and happily too; for
just at that moment the house-cleaner, who had grown paler every
instant, fell in a heap in the entry, and the policeman, who was not the
man I would want about me in any trouble, seemed somewhat embarrassed by
this new emergency, and let me lift the poor thing up and drag her
farther into the hall.

She had fainted, and should have had something done for her, but anxious
though I always am to be of help where help is needed, I had no sooner
got within range of the parlor door with my burden, than I beheld a
sight so terrifying that I involuntarily let the poor woman slip from my
arms to the floor.

In the darkness of a dim corner (for the room had no light save that
which came through the doorway where I stood) lay the form of a woman
under a fallen piece of furniture. Her skirts and distended arms alone
were visible; but no one who saw the rigid outlines of her limbs could
doubt for a moment that she was dead.

At a sight so dreadful, and, in spite of all my apprehensions, so
unexpected, I felt a sensation of sickness which in another moment might
have ended in my fainting also, if I had not realized that it would
never do for me to lose my wits in the presence of a man who had none
too many of his own. So I shook off my momentary weakness, and turning
to the policeman, who was hesitating between the unconscious figure of
the woman outside the door and the dead form of the one within I cried
sharply:

"Come, man, to business! The woman inside there is dead, but this one is
living. Fetch me a pitcher of water from below if you can, and then go
for whatever assistance you need. I'll wait here and bring this woman
to. She is a strong one, and it won't take long."

"You'll stay here alone with that----" he began.

But I stopped him with a look of disdain.

"Of course I will stay here; why not? Is there anything in the dead to
be afraid of? Save me from the living, and I undertake to save myself
from the dead."

But his face had grown very suspicious.

"You go for the water," he cried. "And see here! Just call out for some
one to telephone to Police Headquarters for the Coroner and a
detective. I don't quit this room till one or the other of them comes."

Smiling at a caution so very ill-timed, but abiding by my invariable
rule of never arguing with a