“Here is your bath,” opening a door into the anteroom. “I will place a note upon Mr. Starkweather’s desk saying that you are here. Will you need your trunk up to-night, Miss?”
“Oh, no, indeed,” Helen declared. “I have a kimono here—and other things. I’ll be glad of the bath, though. One does get so dusty traveling.”
She was unlocking her bag. For a moment she hesitated, half tempted to take the housekeeper into her confidence regarding her money. But the woman went directly to the door and bowed herself out with a stiff:
“Good-night, Miss.”
“My! But this is a friendly place!” mused Helen, when she was left alone. “And they seem to have so much confidence in strangers!”
Therefore, she went to the door into the hall, found there was a bolt upon it, and shot it home. Then she pulled the curtain across the keyhole before sitting down and counting all her money over again.
“They got me doing it!” muttered Helen. “I shall be afraid of every person I meet in this man’s town.”
But by and by she hopped up, hid the wallet under her pillow (the bed was a big one with deep mattress and downy pillows) and then ran to let her bath run in the little room where Mrs. Olstrom had snapped on the electric light.
She undressed slowly, shook out her garments, hung them properly to air, and stepped into the grateful bath. How good it felt after her long and tiresome journey by train!
But as she was drying herself on the fleecy towels she suddenly heard a sound outside her door. After the housekeeper left her the whole building had seemed as silent as a tomb. Now there was a steady rustling noise in the short corridor on which her room opened.