THE MIDNIGHT INTRUDER
Once in their rooms the drooping spirits of the picnickers revived, somewhat. It was a fine night, the air warm and fragrant. The windows of the sleeping rooms were wide open and the moonlight streamed across the floor, filling the whole place with its soft radiance.
“Oh look!” cried Grace, going over to the open window. “What a darling balcony! I believe the other rooms all open out on it too. Good-bye,” she called to Mollie and the countess, as she stepped nimbly over the sill. “I’m going to make a call.”
Grace had hardly disappeared, before the countess went quickly to the door, closed it, then came back to Mollie, her finger on her lip. Drawing Mollie over to one corner of the room, where they could not be observed from the outside, the countess whispered. “Mademoiselle Mollie, I believe you love me and trust me, even more than do your friends, and because of this I am going to ask you to do me a very great favor.”
Mollie’s blue eyes looked lovingly up into the dark eyes of the countess. So fervent was her feeling of adoration for this fascinating stranger that she was prepared to grant any favor that lay within her power. “I should dearly love to help you in any way I can,” she said earnestly. “You make me very, very happy.”
The countess kissed her.
“Dear child,” she continued, “the thing I am going to ask seems simple enough, but some day you will understand how much it means to me. Wait a moment,” she added almost under her breath. “There is some one whom I hold in such dread that, even in this desolate and far-away place, he or his confederate might be listening.”
She looked about her cautiously, then went to the window and anxiously scanned the balcony. It was quite empty. Her eyes searched the long avenue leading to the grove that looked like a huge black spot in the moonlight. Then she returned to Mollie and said softly, “I am not afraid of ghosts, and neither are you, Mollie, I am sure, because there are no such things; but this place fills me with foreboding. It is so lonesome, so utterly dismal. What was that? I thought I heard a noise below. Did you hear anything?”
“Perhaps it was Jim closing up for the night,” replied Mollie, pressing close to the countess for comfort. “But what was the favor? I will do anything for you.”
“This is it,” answered the countess, her voice again dropping to a whisper. “Will you, for a few days, carry a paper for me? It is a very dangerous paper, dangerous, that is, because some one else wishes it, but it is a very valuable one to me because I may need it, and if you will keep it safely hidden until I do need it, you will not only be doing me a service but Mademoiselle Warren also.”