ed for at least a hundred years.
The inner door was a long time in opening. Just as I was beginning to
despair it swung a cautious crack. I saw the glimmer of eyes, then
immediately it was opened wide by a woman, the same maid whom I had
seen brushing out the Spanish Woman's hair.

"The Senora Valencia?" I asked, feeling the mockery of my question, but
pressing forward in terror lest she should not let me in. Her face had
a set appearance. She looked as if she hated me, but she admitted me
readily enough, closing the door quickly upon me. There, just within
the threshold of the house, she held out to me a white envelope.

The outside was blank, enigmatic as the servant's face, but from it I
pulled a folded sheet of paper scrawled in that bold hand, which, like
all other attributes of that woman, was unforgettable. Within the
paper was a card. Upon the card I read:

"You see, he understands me perfectly. He wishes to be rid of me and
he has chosen the one way possible. I give you back his words."

No signature, and the card was my dance program still with its little
pencil. On the back I read the farewell Johnny Montgomery had made
her. It was in Spanish. "I am in love with another woman. Go away
without me. I am going back."

I stood crumpling the thing in my clenched hand and the first thought
came trembling in words: "Oh, cruel, cruel! How could he say it!"
When I remembered her passionate face and wild will I wondered what
love had done with her when first she had read that card. If a girl
like Laura Burnet had fainted at a lesser shock, what had a creature
like the Spanish Woman done? And then the next thought came, wiping
out the memory of the first. "But there is nothing here to help Johnny
Montgomery--nothing at all!"

The maid's voice broke upon my bewilderment, harsh and grating. "Will
the Senorita walk up-stairs?"

I turned to her in increasing amazement. What might this mean? Was I
after all to find my mystery's clew?

"The Senora's room," the woman explained, going before, and I followed
up the stair.

I thought I could have told without previous knowledge that the house
had been deserted by its mistress. The rooms which had been warm as
with the heat of life were now deathly cold, as if they had been closed
for a long time. The sweet, thick perfume which had pervaded them had
failed, leaving only a dank smell of old weighty hangings; the very
mysteriousness seemed to have d