"Can I do anything?"
"Be you good at swounds?"
"First-class."
"Come on, then," and she began a return trip at a snail's pace.
Captain White wound an intricate pattern of footsteps all around her as they went up-stairs. He had never before been in the upper part of this house, and he gave himself up to admiration until he reached the long white bedroom. There he was shocked. Chelda looked badly, and he knelt hastily beside her, and laid his hand on her heart.
"Get me some of those bottles, can't you?" he said, pointing to a table,—"something strong. Never mind—I'll do it myself."
Some smelling-salts, that made him throw his head back with a jerk, had something of the same enlivening effect upon Chelda. She gasped, made a painful movement of her forehead, and began to lose the sickly pallor overspreading her olive complexion.
Captain White's fears on her account were at once put to rest, and he resumed his scrutiny of his surroundings. This was Miss Gastonguay's room. That was her bed. Close beside it was the table against which the burglar's efforts had been directed. If then its contents were valuable, why was the upper drawer open, the key falling from it?
He took the liberty of gently detaching the newspaper cutting from Chelda's clasped fingers.
"Gentleman George"—Oh, here was the solution of the mystery. Chelda had been electrified. She had to-day, strange to say, made the same discovery that he had, but she had made hers by dishonest means. She had taken advantage of her aunt's absence to rummage the hiding-place in which, with a woman's tenderness, were kept some remembrances of the disgraced brother.