“Very well,” Cora acceded. Then the woman told her strange story.
“Some time ago I was employed in an office. I had charge of the cataloging of confidential papers. I had been with the firm only a short time, when one day,” she paused abruptly, “one day I was very busy.
“A big piece of business had just been transacted, and there was a lot of ready cash in the office. It was my duty to see that the record of all finished business was entered in the books, and I was intent upon that task.”
Again she paused, and in the interval there came a flame of lightning followed by a roar of thunder.
“My, what a storm!” gasped the woman. “I’m glad I am not out in it.”
The remark seemed pathetic, and served to distract the most nervous of the girls from a fear that they otherwise would have felt.
“We are glad you are with us,” Belle ventured, as Cora hastened out into the kitchen, to make sure that all was right there.
The maids had been startled. Nettie was assuring a new girl that thunder storms were never disastrous in Chelton, but the latter had suddenly become prayerful, and would not answer the simplest questions. Assuring herself that Nettie could take care of the girl and two newly hired men, who had assembled in the kitchen, Cora went back to the library.
“Well, that day,” continued the woman, “marked my life-doom. As I worked over my books, and counted the money, I saw two men standing in the door. A young girl clerk–Nancy Ford–was nearest to them. As she saw them she screamed, and darted past them out–out somewhere in this big world, and I have never been able to find her since.”
The woman put up both hands to cover her pallid face, and sighed heavily. No one spoke. Eline had shifted her chair, unconsciously, very near the stranger, and sat with rapt attention waiting for the continuation of the story.