aid: "Nixon let you in.
I don't know whether any one else is below. Mayor Packard has not yet
come home."

"I know; Nixon told me. Would you--would you mind,"--how hard she strove
to show only the indignant curiosity natural to the situation--"do you
object, I mean, to going down and seeing?"

"Not at all," I cheerfully answered, glad enough of this chance to
settle my own doubts. And with a last glance at her face, which was far
too white and drawn to please me, I hastened below.

The lights had not yet been put out in the halls, though I saw none in
the drawing-room or library. Indeed, I ran upon Nixon coming from the
library, where he had evidently been attending to his final duties of
fastening windows and extinguishing lights. Alive to the advantage of
this opportune meeting, I addressed him with as little aggressiveness as
possible.

"Mrs. Packard has sent me down to see who laughed just now so loudly.
Was it you?"

Strong and unmistakable dislike showed in his eyes, but his voice was
restrained and apparently respectful as he replied: "No, Miss. I didn't
laugh. There was nothing to laugh at."

"You heard the laugh? It seemed to come from somewhere here. I was on
the third floor and I heard it plainly."

His face twitched--a habit of his when under excitement, as I have since
learned--as with a shrug of his old shoulders he curtly answered:

"You were listening; I was not. If any one laughed down here I didn't
hear 'em."

Confident that he was lying, I turned quietly away and proceeded down
the hall toward Mayor Packard's study.

"I wish to speak to the mayor," I explained.

"He's not there." The man had eagerly followed me. "He's not come home
yet, Miss."

"But the gas is burning brightly inside and the door ajar. Some one is
there."

"It is Mr. Steele. He came in an hour ago. He often works here till
after midnight."

I had heard what I wanted to know, but, being by this time at the very
threshold, I could not forbear giving the door a slight push, so as to
catch at least a momentary glimpse of the man he spoke of.

He was sitting at his post, and as he neither looked up nor stirred at
my intrusion, I had an excellent opportunity for observing again the
clear-cut profile which had roused my admiration the day before.

Certainly, seen as I saw it now, in the concentrated glow of a lamp
shaded from every other corner of the room, it was a face well worth
looking at. Seldom, perhaps never, had