Reaching out in the dark, she encountered an arm. Instantly her right hand was seized in a grip of steel. There was a struggle. She was thrown to the floor; a shot; a cry—was it her own or another person's voice? Then absolute silence.
When Billie came back to consciousness, she was lying on a couch in the library. Miss Helen was kneeling beside her with the smelling salts. Mary was bathing her forehead with cold water and her father was chafing her wrists and saying in a low voice:
"You are not hurt, are you, Billie-girl? There, speak to father. Are you all right?"
There seemed to be a great many other people scattered about the room, the guests and the servants and her own particular friends leaning over her anxiously.
"I hope I didn't kill him?" she said weakly.
Mr. Campbell could not refrain from smiling.
"You are just a little girl after all, Billie," he said. "No, you didn't kill him, but you hit him. Look at that." He pointed to some blood spots on the rug. "You certainly winged him, whoever he was. In some way, he escaped. I don't know how, because we were in the hall when the shot was fired and the windows are still locked. He may have got out through the servants' quarters but that would have been difficult, too, without being seen."
Billie sat up.
"I'm all right now," she said. "It was only fright because I lost my way in the dark and couldn't find the door, and it was so ghastly running into another person in the blackness like that. Father, I wish you would tell them not to put out the lights in this room so early. It's the second time it's happened now."
"O'Haru, you hear what the lady says," said Mr. Campbell half humorously.