my own
spring-house without having a posse after me to bring me back?"

"Ordinarily," said Mr. Thoburn, with his snaky eyes on me, "I think
I may say that you might go almost anywhere without my turning out to
recover you. But Mrs. Moody is having hysterics."

Mrs. Moody! I'd forgotten the Moodys!

"She is convinced that you have drowned yourself, head down, in the
spring," Mr. Pierce said in his pleasant way. "You've been gone two
hours, you know."

He took my arm and turned me toward the house. I was dazed.

"In answer to your urgent inquiry," Mr. Thoburn called after me,
disagreeably, "Mr. Moody has not died. He is asleep. But, by the way,
where's the spring water?"

I didn't answer him; I couldn't. We went into the house; Mrs. Moody and
Miss Cobb were sitting on the stairs. Mrs. Moody had been crying, and
Miss Cobb was feeding her the whisky I had left, with a teaspoon. She
had had a half tumblerful already and was quite maudlin. She ran to me
and put her arms around me.

"I thought I was a murderess!" she cried. "Oh, the thought! Blood on my
soul! Why, Minnie Waters, wherever did you get that sealskin coat!"

CHAPTER IX

DOLLY, HOW COULD YOU?

I lay down across my bed at six o'clock that morning, but I was too
tired and worried to sleep, so at seven I got up and dressed.

I was frightened when I saw myself in the glass. My eyes looked like
burnt holes in a blanket. I put on two pairs of stockings and heavy
shoes, for I knew I was going to do the Eskimo act again that day and
goodness knows how many days more, and then I went down and knocked
at the door of Miss Patty's room. She hadn't been sleeping either. She
called to me in an undertone to come in, and she was lying propped up
with pillows, with something pink around her shoulders and the night
lamp burning beside the bed. She had a book in her hand, but all over
the covers and on the table at her elbow were letters in the blue
foreign envelopes with the red and black and gold seal.

I walked over to the foot of the bed.

"They're here," I said.

She sat up, and some letters slid to the floor.

"THEY'RE here!" she repeated. "Do you mean Dorothy?"

"She and her husband. They came last night at five minutes to twelve.
Their train was held up by the blizzard and they won't come in until
they see you. They're hiding in the shelter-house on the golf links."

I think she thought I was crazy: I looked it. She hopped out of bed and
closed t