e gasped, her single eye glaring at him, "who dared
say Nita burned me?"

"It was Nita herself who told me," Dundee answered softly. "Just a few
minutes ago."

"Holy Mother!" the maid gasped, and crossed herself dazedly.

Let her think the dead woman had appeared to him in a vision, Dundee
told himself. Perhaps her confession would come the quicker--

The maid began to rock her gaunt body, her arms crossed over her flat
chest. "My poor little girl! Even in death she thinks of me, she's
sorry--. She sent me a message, didn't she? Tell me! She was always
trying to comfort me, sir! The poor little thing couldn't believe I'd
forgiven her as soon as she done it--. Tell me!"

"Yes," Dundee agreed, his eyes watching her keenly. "She sent you a
message--of a sort.... But I can't give it to you until you have told me
all about the--accident in which you were burned."

"I'll tell," Lydia promised eagerly. Gone were the harshness and
secretiveness with which she had met his earlier questioning.... "You
see, sir, I loved Miss Nita--I called her Nita, if you don't mind, sir.
I loved her like she was my own child. And she was fond of me, too,
fonder of me than of anybody in the world, she used to tell me, when
some man had hurt her bad.... And there was always some man or other,
she was so sweet and so pretty.... Well, I found her in the bathroom one
day, just ready to drink carbolic acid, to kill her poor little self--"

"When was that, Lydia?" Dundee interrupted.

"It was in February--Sunday, the ninth of February," Lydia went on,
still rocking in an agony of grief. "I tried to take the glass out of
her hands. She'd poured a lot of the stuff out of the bottle.... You
see, she was already in a fit of hysterics, or she'd never have tried to
kill herself.... It was my own fault, trying to take the glass away from
her, like I did--"

"She flung the acid into your face?" Dundee asked, shuddering.

"She didn't know what she was doing!" the woman cried, glaring at him.
"Nearly went out of her mind, they told me at the hospital, because
she'd hurt me.... A private room in the best hospital in New York she
got for me, trained nurses night and day, and so many doctors fussing
around me I wanted to fire the whole outfit and save some of my poor
girl's money--which I don't know till this day how she got hold of--"

Dundee let her sob and rock her arms for a while unmolested. In February
Nita Selim had had to borrow money to pay doc