Instantly I lifted the still form from the floor and pillowed the sunny brown tresses in the hollow of my arm. How light she was! How soft! How lovely and tender! It was wonderful—a sublime revelation—thus to feel the actual contact of her warm, yielding body.
But Heaven knows, I did n't stop to analyze my feelings at the time. For a while I was shaken, panic-stricken, utterly unable to do more than stare numbly down at the sweet pale face, framed in its nimbus of wavy brown hair. I got a grip on myself, though, and Stodger was sent flying to fetch Miss Fluette.
She came quickly enough, wondering and alarmed; and when she beheld me holding her cousin, would have snatched her from me—with what biting words I can only imagine.
But for once in her life, at least, that proud, wilful young lady bowed without a murmur to the tone of authority; for one brief moment she stared at me astounded, and in the next, as comprehension dawned, melted. It is hard to say which of her two attitudes was the more impressive: the flaming anger provoked by the sight of the unconscious girl in my arms, or the tenderly sweet manner with which she presently turned to minister to her. The voice which bade me leave Genevieve to her care was actually gentle. Very reluctantly, I withdrew with Stodger into the hall. Before I closed the door, however, I tersely charged Miss Belle to give me as soon as possible the explanation of the mystery.
The door closed, I turned upon my unoffending associate rather angrily, I 'm ashamed to say; but Stodger's good-nature was imperturbable. He could tell me absolutely nothing that threw light upon whatever terrifying experience Miss Cooper had undergone.
He had remained at the spot where I had last seen him, he said; a position he had assumed purposely, because from there he had a view of practically the entire second story. He had opened all the doors so that the slightest sound or movement in any of the chambers could not fail to attract his attention. Immediately behind him, by simply turning his head, he could see through the bath room, across the landing at the top of the rear stairs, and into the small sewing-room beyond. To right and left—east and west—the corridor extended the width of the house, and an intruder could have gained access to any of the rooms only by passing the watcher.
The sudden piercing scream, Stodger protested, had startled and astonished him as much as it had anybody. He wheeled round to find the bath room door so nearly closed that it was impossible to glimpse what lay beyond until he had again opened it; which he had done promptly, he declared, to behold only Miss Cooper. She was lying on the floor in a dead faint.
Miss Belle called to me, after a minute or two of anxious waiting, and I hastened into the bath room. Genevieve was so far recovered that she was able to look wonderingly up at her cousin, a terrified expression yet lingering in her eyes. Her face was white and drawn. Her cousin was upon one knee, supporting her upon the other and holding her tightly.
I knelt upon the other side, taking one of the little hands in mine. Almost at once I was gladdened and relieved by seeing the sweet face break into one of its lovely smiles.
"What was it?" I asked, anxiously enough. "Have you been hurt?"