“Yes—but, aunt, this day’s work has cost me my situation. I am dismissed!”
“Well, a holiday will do you good.”
“Good gracious—you take it coolly!”
“Go to bed.”
A sudden din of tumbling weights and splintering wood broke out behind the half-open door. For, within the room a man had been sitting on a chair tilted back on its two hind legs. The chair was old and slender, the man huge; and one of the chair-legs had collapsed under the weight and landed the man on the floor.
“Oh, aunt! didn’t you say that no one—” began Winifred.
The sentence was never finished. Rachel Craik, her features twisted in anger, pushed the young girl with a force which sent her staggering, and then immediately shut the door. Winifred was left outside in the darkness.
She returned to her bed, but not to sleep. It was certain that her aunt had lied to her—there was more in the air than Winifred’s quick wits could fathom. The fact of Rachel Craik’s release did not clear up the mystery of the fact that she had been arrested. Winifred lay, spurring her fancy to account for all that puzzled her; and underlying her thoughts was the man’s face and those strange words which she had heard somewhere on the borders of sleep.
She fancied she had seen the man somewhere before. At last she recalled the occasion, and almost laughed at the conceit. It was a picture of Sitting Bull, and that eminent warrior had long since gone to the happy hunting-grounds.
Meantime, the murmur of voices in the back room had recommenced and was going on. Then, towards morning, Winifred became aware that the murmur had stopped, and soon afterward she heard the click of the lock of the front door and a foot going down the front steps.