water at her elbow roll over and smash on the floor, and saw
her clutch wildly at Mr. Pierce's shoulder.

"Not--not DICKY Carter!" she cried.

"Richard--they call him Dick," Mr. Pierce said uneasily, and loosened
her fingers from his coat.

Oh, well, everybody knows it now--how she called Mr. Dick everything in
the calendar, and then began to cry and said nobody would ever know what
she'd been through with, and the very dress she had on was a part of
the trousseau she'd had made, and what with the dressmaker's bills--

Suddenly she stopped crying.

"Where is he, anyhow?" she demanded.

"All we are sure of," Mr. Pierce replied quietly, "is that he is not in
the sanatorium."

She looked at us all closely, but she got nothing from my face.

"Oh, very well," she said, shrugging her shoulders, "I'll wait until he
shows up. It doesn't cost anything."

Then, with one of her easy changes, she laughed and picked up her muff
to go.

"Minnie and I," she said, "will tend bar here, and in our leisure
moments we will pour sulphur water on a bunch of Dicky's letters that I
have, to cool 'em." She walked to the door and turned around, smiling.

"Carry fire insurance on 'em all the time," she finished and went out,
leaving us staring at one another!

CHAPTER XVIII

MISS COBB'S BURGLAR

I went to bed early that night. What with worrying and being alternately
chilled by tramping through the snow and roasted as if I was sitting on
a volcano with an eruption due, I was about all in. We'd been obliged to
tell Mrs. Sam about the Summers woman, and I had to put hot flannels on
her from nine to ten. She was quieter when I left her, but, as I told
Mr. Sam, it was the stillness of despair, not resignation.

I guess it was about four o'clock in the morning when a hand slid over
my face, and I sat up and yelled. The hand covered my mouth at that,
and something long and white and very thin beside the bed said: "Sh! For
heaven's sake, Minnie!"

It was Miss Cobb! It was lucky I came to my senses when I did, for
her knees gave way under her just then and she doubled up on the floor
beside the bed with her face in my comfort.

I lighted a candle and set it on a chair beside the bed and took a good
look at her. She was shaking all over, which wasn't strange, for I sleep
with my window open, and she had a key in her hand.

"Here," she gasped, holding out the key, "here, Minnie, wake the house
and get him, but, oh, Minnie, f