rough the early
evening hours, and fell asleep not with a sense of being drifted
deliciously away, but of sinking down under deep exhaustion.

When I awakened the next morning I was astonished to find myself
feeling quite differently--a little tired and languid--but the aching
misery, the black hopelessness, that had fallen on me the night before
had quite evaporated, left perhaps in that bottomless pit of sleep into
which I had sunk.

It seemed now, in the broad daylight, as if I had made too much of
everything that had happened; as if Hallie must be mistaken. It could
not have been Johnny Montgomery who had shot a man, or, if he had, it
must have been an accident. And, even suppose he had meant to kill
him, what possible difference could it make to me?

Here Abby knocked at the door, and, showing a rather forbidding face
around it, said that Hallie was down-stairs; but that if I was going to
have any more conniption fits I would better stay where I was. She
left a glass of milk and a clean tucker and sleeves on my chair. I
swallowed the milk, and hurried into my clothes, but I descended rather
slowly to the hall. I had always confided in Hallie, and I knew she
would probably expect to hear all about it from the moment I had seen
him. I hated to think of the questions I would have to answer; yet I
would have to face them sometime, and it was better to get it over at
once.

When I reached the sitting-room door I was decidedly dashed at sight of
Estrella Mendez's red pelisse behind Hallie's blue hat ribbons. Two of
them were a little too much for me, and I was all ready for flight when
Hallie pounced upon me. She is such an imposing person, wears so many
tucks and ruffles in her clothes, such bows on her hats, and can spread
her skirts about and rustle so, that I always feel like the merest
child beside her.

"You poor little Ellie," she began, "how pale you look still! I am
afraid I frightened you to death yesterday."

I murmured something about being much upset.

"Yes, your father said you were not at all well. He gave me such a
scolding for pouncing out on you like that!" She laughed her deep
throaty chuckle. "But I supposed of course you had heard, it happened
so close to you. Didn't you even hear the shot?"

I must have gaped at her. Could it be she didn't know that I had seen
it? Didn't know what I had been through? I recalled confusedly the
warning of the Chief of Police and father not to