"Then there WAS one?"
"I believe so."
"You BELIEVE—you don't KNOW?"
"I believed it was a woman from her voice; for the door was locked, and the key was downstairs. When I fetched it and opened the door, she—or whoever it was—was gone."
"And that's why you said so imploringly, just now, 'Please don't go away yet'? You see I've caught you. Ah! I don't wonder you blush!"
If he had, his cheeks had caught fire from her brilliant eyes and the extravagantly affected sternness—as of a school-girl monitor—in her animated face. Certainly he had never seen such a transformation.
"Yes; but, you see, I wanted to know who the intruder was," he said, smiling at his own embarrassment.
"You did—well, perhaps THAT will tell you? It was found under your door before I went away." She suddenly produced from her pocket a folded paper and handed it to him. It was a misspelt scrawl, and ran as follows:—
"Why are you so cruel? Why do you keep me dansing on the stepps before them gurls at the windows? Was it that stuckup Saint, Miss Brooks, that you were afraid of, my deer? Oh, you faithless trater! Wait till I ketch you! I'll tear your eyes out and hern!"
It did not require great penetration for Herbert to be instantly convinced that the writer of this vulgar epistle and the owner of the unknown voice were two very different individuals. The note was evidently a trick. A suspicion of its perpetrators flashed upon him.