"There is a motor car coming up the drive."
"Ah, it is Mme. Cimmino." Mrs. Atterbury arose, her glance following the trim little electric brougham as it lurched over the hillocks of snow. "She will probably stay to lunch, and that means the letters will have to be held over until tomorrow. Amuse yourself as well as you can, my dear. You'll find plenty of books here and there is a phonograph in the corner."
But Betty did not turn to the well-filled bookcases which lined the walls. Instead she sat with the strange letter spread out before her, reading and re-reading it as if to memorize every word. That it was a code of some sort she did not doubt, and without the key it would seem a hopeless task to attempt to decipher it, yet the young girl pored over it as eagerly as though its possible solution contained a message of vital import to herself as well as her employer.
Welch brought her lunch upon a tray and the afternoon was well advanced before the summons came for her to go to the sewing room. She spent the intervening hours in a searching examination of the library itself, but it yielded nothing of seeming interest or import to her. There was no sign of Mme. Cimmino, but her car had not left the drive and a subdued murmur as of several voices came from behind the tightly-closed door of the drawing-room as the girl passed. Welch ushered her to a large sunny room at the top of the house where she found Mrs. Atterbury deep in consultation with a faded little woman of indeterminate age who fluttered nervously on being presented.
"Miss Pope knows what you require, I think," observed Mrs. Atterbury. "Everything must be as simple as possible, you know."
Miss Pope nodded, her mouth full of pins which she was sticking with mathematical precision into the little flat cushion that hung from her belt. When the last was in place, she took up her tape measure.
"Now, miss, if you please."
Betty stood patiently, marvelling at the odd tremulousness of the withered hands which fumbled about her. Could it be merely nerves, or was the worn, pallid, little creature under the spell of some emotion too strong to be wholly controlled?
Mrs. Atterbury had strolled to the window with a fashion book and the seamstress dropped to her knees before Betty to measure the skirt length. Glancing down, the girl met the tired eyes of the older woman and found them fixed on hers with a mute insistent appeal in their depths.
Involuntarily she started, and Miss Pope, with a warning gesture, turned over the pincushion at her belt. Upon the under side worked out in rough irregular letters formed by the pin heads, Betty read the words, "Go away."