“I've got it, Miss Gloria!” he said, coming panting up the steps. “I've got it! I struck the very man and he told me. He wrote it down for me. It belongs to an estate. Here it is.”
Gloria looked down at the card that bore a few lines indifferently traced. But what her eyes met caused the color to drift from her face.
“Are you sure, Dinney?” she said sharply to the boy. “Are you sure? Quick!” A faintness was seizing her.
“Sure,” answered the boy.
The girl laid a trembling hand upon the door. “I will get the money for you, Dinney, when I know you are dead right.”
The voice was not the voice Dinney knew. Looking at the girl, he saw that tears had sprung to her eyes. She was fumbling blindly with the latch-key.
“Miss Gloria,” he said, in an awed voice, as he took the key and fitted it for her, “don't you go to feeling like that.” Suddenly he was a man in his protective earnestness. “It ain't nothin' to you.”
But Gloria had passed him and was already ascending the broad flight of stairs leading from the reception hall. She had forgotten her key, she had forgotten to close the door. Dinney thoughtfully took the key out and placed it on a stand near. Then closing the door after him, he went slowly down the steps.