“You heard men talking in her room—when?”
“O, it must have been as late as half-past twelve. I had been asleep and the noise they made whispering, woke me.”
“Wait,” I said, “tell me where her room is, hers and yours.”
“Hers is the third story back, mine the front one on the same floor.”
“Who are you?” I now inquired. “What position do you occupy in Mr. Blake’s house?”
“I am the housekeeper.”
Mr. Blake was a bachelor.
“And you were wakened last night by hearing whispering which seemed to come from this girl’s room.”
“Yes, I at first thought it was the folks next door,—we often hear them when they are unusually noisy,—but soon I became assured it came from her room; and more astonished than I could say,—She is a good girl,” she broke in, suddenly looking at me with hotly indignant eyes, “a—a—as good a girl as this whole city can show; don’t you dare, any of you, to hint at anything else o—”
“Come, come,” I said soothingly, a little ashamed of my too communicative face, “I haven’t said anything, we will take it for granted she is as good as gold, go on.”