do you mean by him? There is only one person in the hall, and that
is your butler."

"Hasn't Mr. Packard returned?"

"No, Madam."

"But I thought I saw him looking at me."

Her eyes were wild, her body shaking with irrepressible agitation.

"You were mistaken. Mayor Packard has not yet come home."

At this double assurance, she sank back satisfied, but still trembling
and very white.

"It is Mr. Packard I meant," she whispered presently. "Stay with me
and, when he comes in, tell him what will keep him from looking in or
speaking to me. Promise!" She was growing wild again. "Promise, if you
would be of any use to me."

"I do promise." At which I felt her hand grasp mine with grateful
pressure. "Don't you wish some assistance from me? Your dress--I tried
to loosen it, but failed to find the end of the cord. Shall I try
again?"

"No, no; that is, I will do it myself."

I did not see how she could, for her waist was laced up the back, but
I saw that she was too eager to have me go to remember this, and
recognizing the undesirability of irritating her afresh, I simply asked
if she wished me to remain within call.

But even this was more than she wanted.

"No. I am better now. I shall be better yet when quite alone." Then
suddenly: "Who knows of this--this folly of mine?"

"Only Nixon and myself. The girls have gone to bed."

"Nixon I can trust not to speak of it. Tell him to go. You, I know, will
remember only long enough to do for me what I have just asked."

"Mrs. Packard, you may trust me." The earnest, confiding look, which for
a moment disturbed the melancholy of her large eyes, touched me closely
as I shut the door between us.

"Now what is the meaning of this mystery?" I asked myself after I had
seen Nixon go downstairs, shaking his head and casting every now
and then a suspicious glance behind him. "It is not as trivial as it
appears. That laugh was tragedy to her, not comedy." And when I paused
to recollect its tone I did not wonder at its effect upon her mind,
strained as it undoubtedly was by some secret sorrow or perplexity.

And from whose lips had that laugh sprung? Not from ghostly ones. Such
an explanation I could not accept, and how could Mrs. Packard? From
whose, then? If I could settle this fact I might perhaps determine to
what extent its effect was dependent upon its source. The butler denied
having even heard it. Was this to be believed? Did not this very denial
prove that it was