I had hardly finished my account when there was a knock at the door, and the servant appeared.
“Mrs. Knapp's compliments, and she would like to see Mr. Wilton when you are done,” he said.
I could with difficulty repress an exclamation, and my heart climbed into my throat. I was ready to face the Wolf in his den, but here was a different matter. I recalled that Mrs. Knapp was a more intimate acquaintance of Henry Wilton's than Doddridge Knapp had been, and I saw Niagara ahead of my skiff.
“Yes, yes; quite likely,” said my employer, referring to my story of Wallbridge. “I heard something of the kind from my men. I'll know to-morrow for certain, I expect. I forgot to tell you that the ladies would want to see you. They have missed you lately.” And the Wolf motioned me to the door where the servant waited.
Here was a predicament. I was missed and wanted—and by the ladies. My heart dropped back from my throat, and I felt it throbbing in the lowest recesses of my boot-heels as I rose and followed my guide.
CHAPTER XII. LUELLA KNAPP
As the door swung open, my heart almost failed me. If there had been a chance of escape I should have made the bolt, then and there.
I had not counted on an interview with the women of Doddridge Knapp's family. I had, to be sure, vaguely foreseen the danger to come from meeting them, but I had been confident that it would be easy to avoid them. And now, in the face of the emergency, my resources had failed me, and I was walking into Mrs. Knapp's reception-room without the glimmer of an idea of how I should find my way out.