She lifted the latch. The door seemed to stick. She pressed her knee against the panel; it did not give at all.
And then she discovered that the door was locked. But the key was there, and in a moment she turned it creakingly and pushed the door open.
The air in the corridor had been still; but suddenly a strong breeze drew this green door wide open. The wind rushed past, blew out the candle, and behind her the other door, which she had left ajar, banged heavily, echoing and reechoing through the empty house.
’Phemie was startled, but she understood at once the snuffing of her candle and the closing of the other door. She only hoped Lyddy would not be frightened by the noise–or by her absence from her side.
“I’ll see it through, just the same,” declared the girl, her teeth set firmly on her lower lip. “Ha! driven away by a draught–not I!”
She groped her way into the room and closed the green door. There was a match upon her candlestick and she again lighted the taper. Quickly the first room in this east wing suite was revealed to her gaze.
This had been the anteroom, or waiting-room for the old doctor’s patients. There was a door opening on the side porch. A long, old-fashioned settee stood against one wall, and some splint-bottomed chairs were set stiffly about the room, while a shaky mahogany table, with one pedestal leg, occupied the center of the apartment.
’Phemie was more careful of the candle now and shielded the flame with her hollowed palm as she pushed open the door of the adjoining room.
Here was a big desk with a high top and drop lid, while there were rows upon rows of drawers underneath. A wide-armed chair stood before the desk, just as it must have been used by the old doctor. The room was lined to the ceiling with cases of books and cupboards. Nobody had disturbed the doctor’s possessions after his death. No younger physician had “taken over” his practice.
’Phemie went near enough to see that the desk, and the cupboards as well, were locked. There was a long case standing like an overgrown clock-case in one corner. The candle-light was reflected in the front of this case as though the door was a mirror.