e, and the house rang with the words; all the
rooms, halls, and even the walls, seemed still murmurous with the
sudden sound, like the tingling of a bell after it had been struck. And
yet--everything was quiet.

She pressed her fingers to her forehead, trying to untangle the maze of
dreams which had evolved this shock for her, the sudden clamor in her
father's voice of a name she hated and hoped never to hear again, a name
she was trying to forget. But as she was unable to trace anything which
had led to it, there remained only the conclusion that her nerves were
not what they should be. The vapors having become obsolete for young
ladies as an explanation for all unpleasant sensations, they were
instructed to have "nerves." This was Miss Betty's first consciousness
of her own, and, desiring no greater acquaintance with them, she told
herself it was unwholesome to fall asleep in a chair by an open window
when the night was as sad as she.

Turning to a chair in front of the small oval mirror of her bureau, she
unclasped the brooch which held her lace collar, and, seating herself,
began to unfasten her hair. Suddenly she paused, her uplifted arms
falling mechanically to her sides.

Someone was coming through the long hall with a soft, almost inaudible
step, a step which was not her father's. She knew at once, with
instinctive certainty, that it was not he. Nor was it Nelson, who would
have shuffled; nor could it be the vain Mamie, nor one of the other
servants, for they did not sleep in the house. It was a step more like a
woman's, though certainly it was not Mrs. Tanberry's.

Betty rose, took a candle, and stood silent for a moment, the heavy
tresses of her hair, half-unloosed, falling upon her neck and left
shoulder like the folds of a dark drapery.

At the slight rustle of her rising, the steps ceased instantly. Her
heart set up a wild beating and the candle shook in her hand. But she
was brave and young, and, following an irresistible impulse, she ran
across the room, flung open the door, and threw the light of the candle
into the hall, holding it at arm's length before her.

She came almost face to face with Crailey Gray.

The blood went from his cheeks as a swallow flies down from a roof; he
started back against the opposite wall with a stifled groan, while she
stared at him blankly, and grew as deathly pale as he.

He was a man of great resource in all emergencies which required a quick
tongue, but, for the