rly,
where I am well known, so that I was not surprised to be thus accosted
by one who was a stranger to me. She was about forty, obviously a
spinster, and clad in a costume not merely out-of-date, but so far
out-of-date as to possess a false air of theatricalism. I can best
describe her (I am not clever in matters of dress) by saying that, with
the exception that she was not wearing a hoopskirt, she appeared to have
stepped out of _Godey's Lady's Book_. A Paisley shawl was wrapped
tightly around her head, although the morning was warm, and its subdued
brilliance clashed oddly with the faded lemon of her dress. Her face was
small, the features regular, but her complexion was more than sallow, it
was yellow, the yellow of dying grass and sunless places. A spot of
rouge glared on either cheek, and, with her eyes, which were black and
brilliant, gave her face the look of fever. Her dark hair, just visible
under the shawl, deepened the hectic quality of her features, although,
as a matter of fact, she was not ill.

"You are a lawyer?" she continued, her brilliant eyes searching my face,
I thought with some boldness, and without waiting for an answer she
said, "Come," and walked abruptly toward the house.

I followed her. On the porch we paused; my companion turned and searched
the street, which was still empty, a fact which seemed to increase her
satisfaction, and without giving me a glance, unlocked the front door
with a key which she was carrying.

II

She led me into the house and through two of the rooms into a third
before we paused. The transition from sunlight to darkness had been too
rapid for my eyes, so that, for some moments I could only stand
ridiculously in the middle of the room. I was conscious of the presence
of a third person--intensely conscious--and exceedingly uncomfortable.
My conductor busied herself pushing forward a chair which, fortunately,
she placed under the shuttered window. To this I stumbled.

"You are a lawyer?" asked a voice from the darkness.

I was startled.

The voice sprang from the corner I was facing as though it were a live
thing that had seized upon me. It was the voice of a woman, of great age
apparently, and yet it possessed a fierce, biting energy that no amount
of years could weaken.

"This is Mr. Gillingham," said my conductor with, I thought, a shade of
asperity. "Of course he's a lawyer."

To this there succeeded a silence, broken only by the sibilant drawing
in