hich the restless eyes
alone bespoke character or decision.

"Mr. Jeffrey is in the back room upstairs," she announced. "He
says for you to come up."

"Is it the room Mrs. Jeffrey used to occupy?" I asked with open
curiosity, as I passed her.

An involuntary shudder proved that she was not without feeling.
So did the quick disclaimer:

"No, no! Those rooms are closed. He occupies the one Miss Tuttle
had before she went away."

"Oh, then, Miss Tuttle is gone?"

Loretta disdained to answer. She had already said enough to cause
her to bite her lip as she disappeared down the basement stair.
Decidedly the boys were right. An uneasy feeling followed any
conversation with this girl. Yet, while there was slyness in her
manner, there was a certain frank honesty visible in it too, which
caused me to think that if she could ever be made to speak, her
evidence could be relied on.

Mr. Jeffrey was sitting with his back to the door when I entered,
but turned as I spoke his name and held out his hand for the note
I carried. I had no expectation of his remembering me as one of
the men who had stood about that night in the Moore house, and I
was not disappointed. To him I was merely a messenger, or common
policeman; and he consequently paid me no attention, while I
bestowed upon him the most concentrated scrutiny of my whole life.
Till now I had seen him only in half lights, or under circumstances
precluding my getting a very accurate idea of him as a man and a
gentleman. Now he sat with the broad daylight on his face, and I
had every opportunity for noting both his features and expression.
He was of a distinguished type; but the cloud enshrouding him was
as heavy as any I had ever seen darkening about a man of his
position and character. His manner, fettered though it was by
gloomy thoughts, was not just the manner I had expected to encounter.

He had a large, clear eye, but the veil which hid the brightness of
his regard was misty with suspicion, not with tears. He appeared
to shrink from observation, and shifted uneasily as long as I stood
in front of him, though he said nothing and did not lift his eyes
from the letter he was perusing till he heard me step back to the
door I had purposely left open and softly close it. Then he glanced
up, with a keen, if not an alarmed look, which seemed an exaggerated
one for the occasion,--that is, if he had no secret to keep.

"Do you suffer so from drafts?" he asked, ri