Was that a noise?
Ruth held her breath and listened. There was not a sound except the regular breathing of Miss Sallie.
Ruth lay with every nerve strained to catch the lightest footfall. In a moment it came again, very faint but still distinct. Something—some one—moved somewhere.
She sat up in bed and touched Barbara lightly on the cheek.
Barbara opened her eyes slowly then sat up. Ruth pointed to the next room. The two girls listened intently. Again there was the sound, a soft, a very soft footfall on a creaking board.
Cautiously the two girls climbed from the bed and crept over to the door between the two rooms. On a small bed at the far side of the room lay the countess, sleeping soundly. Grace and Mollie also were fast asleep in the other bed. Suddenly Ruth gripped Bab’s arm. The eyes of both girls were riveted on the old fashioned dressing table in one corner of the room. Before it stood the same terrible old man that Bab had seen at the villa. He was examining minutely every thing on the dresser. Next he turned his attention to the girls’ walking suits which hung over the backs of the chairs. He searched the pockets of the coats, the linings, and even the hems of the skirts.
“He is certainly looking for a paper,” Barbara thought, as she watched him make his systematic search, “and he certainly has something to do with the countess’s affairs.”
Barbara’s mind reverted to the group she had seen on the hotel veranda, the night before. What was the explanation of it all? Was the countess really an impostor and why, when she evidently feared Monsieur Duval and ignored Mrs. De Lancey Smythe, did she hold interviews late at night with them? She had distinctly refused the “Automobile Girls’” invitations to the hotel, yet she had not refused to meet others there. And what part could this ferocious looking old man possibly have in the drama?
All this passed rapidly through Bab’s mind as with her hand clasped tightly in Ruth’s the two girls watched the intruder with bated breath. To Bab there was something strangely familiar about him, his movements suggested some one she had seen before, yet she could find no place in her memory for him.
Failing to find what he desired, the old man again turned toward the countess a look of indescribable menace on his face. He took a step toward her then—a sudden burst of weird music floated up from the gloomy drawing room. With a smothered exclamation the intruder whirled and making for the window swung himself over the ledge. Ruth clutched Barbara for support. She was trembling with fear.