“I always was a little foolish, Francis, as you well know, and I am just a little afraid to meet my—why, this lets me in, Francis. Now I shall be safely inside till morning at least, and if I can reach my room without meeting old P’lina, I shall gain courage from the old background. Goodnight and thank you.” The door closed and the man called Francis walked back to the car, entered it and drove away.
But none of them had seen a dark figure which kept to the shadows and which stood behind a tree when the lady entered the house. Waiting a little, listening at the door, it, too, entered at the back of the old house.
The lady, with a small flashlight, hurried rather breathlessly up the back stairs and stood smiling a little, hesitating between routes, and fingering a small bunch of keys. No one could see her smiles in the dark, to be sure, but by a sudden impulse she turned to the attic stairs, opened the door there and disappeared from the ken of the man listening at the foot of the first flight. Stealthily he followed, occasionally letting the light in his hand fall before him. But he was familiar with the place, it would have been evident to any one who had seen him.
At the attic door, which stood ajar, he paused, looking within at the small light which proceeded a little slowly into the depths beyond.
“Mercy,—I had forgotten how dusty attics are!” he heard her say, as she drew aside the carpet, which had been replaced, and opened the trap door. “Now, if only I don’t break my neck!”
But the neck did not seem to be broken, for there was no sound of any calamity as the light disappeared. The man then turned on his own light and softly walked across the attic. But he sat down a few moments later in the secret room, to wait, for he did not desire to be present when first she entered the room below.
The panel opened without waking the quietly sleeping Jannet. The little flashlight searched the lower regions of the room first, for possible obstacles. It flashed on the rug, the desk, the little chair. Why, whose pretty slippers were those by the chair?
For a moment only the light flashed on the bed, with some of its covers neatly thrown back across its foot and the outline of some small person lying beneath sheet and blanket. How foolish she had been to think that her room would not be occupied!
Should she go back the way in which she had come? Once more she flashed her light upon the bed,—why this could almost have been herself in days gone by! Jannet’s fair hair, her quiet, sweet young face, the slender hand under her cheek,—who was this?
Tossing aside the tight hat from her own fluffy golden crown of thick hair, the lady, startled, touched, found her way to the little electric lamp upon the desk and turned on the current. The room glowed a little from the rosy shade. She tiptoed to the bed, bending over with lips parted and amazed eyes.