She heard the rasping sound of the file as she began to ascend the stairs, and tried to hurry, when she was suddenly stopped by Alex.’s voice, sounding just as it did in the dining-room when she dropped the salad and saying nearly the same words: “Sherry, go down. You are not wanted here.”
But for the railing on the side of the staircase she would have fallen, she grew so faint and dizzy.
“Yes, I’ll go,” she thought, feeling her way back to her room, where she shank into a chair, with her hands over her eyes and her brain in such a whirl that she did not think of the dog until she felt his paws on her shoulders and his hot breath on her face.
Uncovering her eyes, she saw him looking at her, with an expression so human and full of pity that she put her arms around his neck, and burying her face in his long mane began to cry.
“You dear old dog,” she sobbed; “it was you he meant and not me. I might have known it, but I couldn’t think, I feel so queer.”
The dog’s answer was a low whine as he capered round her with little barks of joy.
“Hush, hush,” she said, trying to quiet him. “They must not know I am here unless I take the key, as I suppose I ought.”
Just then there came to her cries of delight. The chest was opened and the young ladies were going into raptures over its contents, while Charley Reeves was careering around the attic with a white silk bonnet on his head ornamented with pink satin bows and long streamers of wide ribbon for strings. It was Mrs. Crosby’s wedding bonnet of a fashion seventy years back, and the young ladies were wild over it, as they were over everything.
“They do not need the key,” she thought. “I’ll keep it, and before I go away I’ll give it to Mr. Marsh and tell him the truth.”
Dropping it into her work-box, she went downstairs, followed by the dog, who made many ineffectual attempts for her to play with him, as she had often done during her leisure hours.