“Well, keep away from the servants’ hall, hereafter. Go downstairs now, and never come up here any more, and mind you never tell any one I slapped you and shook you just now. If you do I will shut you up in jail to stay forever!” menaced Cora, with flashing eyes.
The boys started to go down obediently, Willie hushing his low sobs in sheer terror, then Cora flew back to the locked door, opened it with a key that she took from a little concealed recess, beneath a small rug that lay before the door.
She did not dream that the curious Mark had darted back to the head of the stairway, and was closely watching her movements.
He put his arm around Willie, whispering excitedly:
“She has unlocked that room and gone and shut herself up in it, the mean, spiteful thing! Do you know I believe she has got something shut up in there.”
“I hate her, and I’m going to tell aunt on her!” came the sobbed reply.
“No, don’t say nothin’, but let’s watch our chance to get even with the mean thing by seeing into that locked door. I seen where she got the key!” consoled Mark, whose curiosity was a predominating trait.
“Yes,” muttered Willie, hopes of vengeance rising in his mind. “We’ll get in that room and see what ’tis she’s hiding.”
Then they pattered downstairs again and no one was the wiser for the little scene that had passed upstairs in the corridor.
Cora remained in the locked room only a few minutes, and on leaving it she again turned the key and slipped it in its place, then sped along the corridor and down the stairs again to her own rooms with an evil light in her dark, down-cast eyes that boded no good to any one who crossed the path of her desires.