that if I questioned them
they would deny everything, and that I might learn more by holding my
tongue and keeping my eyes open. The idea of spending another night
opposite the locked room sickened me, and once I was seized with the
notion of packing my trunk and taking the first train to town; but it
wasn't in me to throw over a kind mistress in that manner, and I tried
to go on with my sewing as if nothing had happened.

I hadn't worked ten minutes before the sewing-machine broke down. It
was one I had found in the house, a good machine, but a trifle out of
order: Mrs. Blinder said it had never been used since Emma Saxon's
death. I stopped to see what was wrong, and as I was working at the
machine a drawer which I had never been able to open slid forward and a
photograph fell out. I picked it up and sat looking at it in a maze. It
was a woman's likeness, and I knew I had seen the face somewhere--the
eyes had an asking look that I had felt on me before. And suddenly I
remembered the pale woman in the passage.

I stood up, cold all over, and ran out of the room. My heart seemed to
be thumping in the top of my head, and I felt as if I should never get
away from the look in those eyes. I went straight to Mrs. Blinder. She
was taking her afternoon nap, and sat up with a jump when I came in.

"Mrs. Blinder," said I, "who is that?" And I held out the photograph.

She rubbed her eyes and stared.

"Why, Emma Saxon," says she. "Where did you find it?"

I looked hard at her for a minute. "Mrs. Blinder," I said, "I've seen
that face before."

Mrs. Blinder got up and walked over to the looking-glass. "Dear me! I
must have been asleep," she says. "My front is all over one ear. And
now do run along, Miss Hartley, dear, for I hear the clock striking
four, and I must go down this very minute and put on the Virginia ham
for Mr. Brympton's dinner."

IV

TO all appearances, things went on as usual for a week or two. The only
difference was that Mr. Brympton stayed on, instead of going off as he
usually did, and that Mr. Ranford never showed himself. I heard Mr.
Brympton remark on this one afternoon when he was sitting in my
mistress's room before dinner.

"Where's Ranford?" says he. "He hasn't been near the house for a week.
Does he keep away because I'm here?"

Mrs. Brympton spoke so low that I couldn't catch her answer.

"Well," he went on, "two's company and three's trumpery; I'm sorry to
be in Ranford's way, and I su