ow stool,
a woman, in a crouching, cat-like attitude, quite silent and still. The
knife with which she had done the deed was dripping in her hand; the
noise of the broken door, and of the entering throng, had not disturbed
her.

For a moment even Barton's rapidity of action and resolution were
paralyzed by the terrible and strange vision that he beheld. He stared
with all his eyes, in a mist of doubt and amazement, at a vision,
dreadful even to one who saw death every day. Then the modern spirit
awoke in him.

"Fetch a policeman," he whispered, to one of the crowding frightened
troop of girls.

"There is a copper at the door, sir; here he comes," said Susan, the
young woman who had called Barton from the _Hit or Miss_.

The helmet of the guardian of the peace appeared welcome above the
throng.

And still the pale woman in white sat as motionless as the stricken
girl at her feet--as if she had not been an actor, but a figure in a
_tableau_.

"Policeman," said Barton, "I give that woman in charge for an attempt at
murder. Take her to the station."

"I don't like the looks of her," whispered the policeman. "I'd better
get her knife from her first, sir."

"Be quick, whatever you do, and have the house cleared. I can't look
after the wounded girl in this crowd."

Thus addressed, the policeman stole round toward the seated woman, whose
eyes had never deigned, all this time, to stray from the body of her
victim. Barton stealthily drew near, outflanking her on the other side.

They were just within arm's reach of the murderess when she leaped with
incredible suddenness to her feet, and stood for one moment erect and
lovely as a statue, her fair locks lying about her shoulders. Then she
raised her right hand; the knife flashed and dropped like lightning into
her breast, and she, too, fell beside the body of the girl whom she had
stricken.

"By George, she's gone!" cried the policeman. Barton pushed past him,
and laid his hand on the woman's heart. She stirred once, was violently
shaken with the agony of death, and so passed away, carrying into
silence her secret and her story.

Mr. Cranley's hopes had been, at least partially, fulfilled.

"Drink, I suppose, as usual. A rummy start!" remarked the policeman,
sententiously; and then, while Barton was sounding and stanching the
wound of the housekeeper's victim, and applying such styptics as he had
within reach, the guardian of social order succeeded in clearing __