cowardice and thankfulness at
getting him at all. I am not ashamed to say that I double-locked the
hall door when I went in.

"You can lock up the rest of the house and go to bed, Liddy," I said
severely. "You give me the creeps standing there. A woman of your age
ought to have better sense." It usually braces Liddy to mention her
age: she owns to forty--which is absurd. Her mother cooked for my
grandfather, and Liddy must be at least as old as I. But that night
she refused to brace.

"You're not going to ask me to lock up, Miss Rachel!" she quavered.
"Why, there's a dozen French windows in the drawing-room and the
billiard-room wing, and every one opens on a porch. And Mary Anne said
that last night there was a man standing by the stable when she locked
the kitchen door."

"Mary Anne was a fool," I said sternly. "If there had been a man
there, she would have had him in the kitchen and been feeding him what
was left from dinner, inside of an hour, from force of habit. Now
don't be ridiculous. Lock up the house and go to bed. I am going to
read."

But Liddy set her lips tight and stood still.

"I'm not going to bed," she said. "I am going to pack up, and
to-morrow I am going to leave."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," I snapped. Liddy and I often desire
to part company, but never at the same time. "If you are afraid, I
will go with you, but for goodness' sake don't try to hide behind me."

The house was a typical summer residence on an extensive scale.
Wherever possible, on the first floor, the architect had done away with
partitions, using arches and columns instead. The effect was cool and
spacious, but scarcely cozy. As Liddy and I went from one window to
another, our voices echoed back at us uncomfortably. There was plenty
of light--the electric plant down in the village supplied us--but there
were long vistas of polished floor, and mirrors which reflected us from
unexpected corners, until I felt some of Liddy's foolishness
communicate itself to me.

The house was very long, a rectangle in general form, with the main
entrance in the center of the long side. The brick-paved entry opened
into a short hall to the right of which, separated only by a row of
pillars, was a huge living-room. Beyond that was the drawing-room, and
in the end, the billiard-room. Off the billiard-room, in the extreme
right wing, was a den, or card-room, with a small hall opening on the
east veranda, and from there