CHAPTER X
MEMORIES
However, Doris was to learn no more that night, for as she moved softly down the stairs the two men pushed back their chairs.
“You’d better be gettin’ out of here before those old gals find out what we’re doing,” he warned. “I’ll let you out the back way.”
They moved on to the kitchen and Doris, made bold by her knowledge of the underhanded scheme, came down into the living room. She heard the back door close as Ronald Trent hurriedly departed. A moment later, as the gate creaked, Wags gave another savage yelp.
Not until she heard Henry starting up the back stairs to his own quarters, did Doris dare venture to the door. Waiting until everything was still again, she quietly let herself out of doors.
Wags whimpered joyfully as she stooped down to unfasten him, and lifted up his paws. Doris picked him up, and holding him close, stole back into the house. She closed and locked the door behind her and listened. The coast seemed clear.
“Don’t you dare bark!” she whispered to Wags.
Tiptoeing up the stairway, she anxiously wondered if she could reach her room without being discovered.
“Azalea and Iris are probably asleep by this time,” she thought.
In this supposition she was not correct. The Misses Gates were at that moment lying wide awake in their adjoining rooms in the left wing, recalling vivid memories of their girlhood when each hoped to be the bride of the handsome John Trent.