way.

"Ahem!" said Nancy, clearing her throat a little. She had come inside
and closed the door, and it seemed that Mr. Gordon was giving her no
attention.

Then she chanced to look up and, on the wall beyond the desk, was a
broad mirror tilted so that the lawyer needed but to raise his eyes to
see reflected in the glass all that went on behind him.

And in that glass Nancy got her first glimpse of Henry Gordon's face.

It was really something more than a glimpse. The lawyer was evidently
staring at her--had been doing so for some seconds. His great, broad,
unwrinkled countenance seemed to have paled on her first appearance, for
now the color was washing back into it in a wave of faint pink--a ruddy
hue that was natural to so full-bodied a man.

"Come here, girl!"

The voice that rumbled out of Mr. Gordon's throat was commensurate with
his bulk. He slowly turned his chair upon its pivot. Trembling, Nancy
made her way across the rug to the corner of his desk.

All of a sudden every bit of courage she had plucked up, was swept away.
She felt a queer emptiness within her. And in her throat a lump had
risen so big that she could not swallow.

CHAPTER V

NANCY'S CURIOUS EXPERIENCE

Mr. Gordon's eyes were brown. They were heavy-lidded so that Nancy could
see very little of their expression. He was a smoothly-shaven man and
his thick lips seemed grim.

"You--you are the girl?" demanded the lawyer.

"Yes--yes, sir," she said. "I'm Nancy Nelson."

[Illustration: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? HAVE YOU RUN AWAY?"]

"What are you doing here? Have you run away?" he shot at her,
accentuating the query with a pointed forefinger.

Afterward she realized that that impaling index finger was a gesture of
habit--it was his way of "spearing" witnesses in court when they were
under fire.

"No, sir," replied Nancy, with more confidence.

"How do you come here, then?"

"I am on my way to Clintondale."

"Clintondale?"

"Pinewood Hall, you know. There--there is a four-hour wait here at
Cincinnati, you know."

"I did _not_ know," he rumbled forth. Then, like a flash, he demanded:
"Who sent you here?"

This question took the last breath of wind out of Nancy's sails. She
had, through it all, believed that he might be glad to see her. But now
she realized that the opposite was the truth.

"Nobody sent me," she stammered.

"Not the woman at the other school--Miss--Miss Prentice?"

"No, sir. She does not know. I--