"I know no more of his whereabouts than the dead!" was the answer. "He expected to be traveling all the time."
A smothered moan of pain came from the white lips of the listener.
"Have you done with me?" asked the woman, impatiently.
Queenie looked out into the street. It was almost dark, and a sleety mist was beginning to fall. The lamp-lighters were going their rounds lighting up the gas-lamps at the corners of the streets, and belated pedestrians were hurrying homeward.
With a shiver she turned back to the portly, comfortable figure of the woman rustling on the door-sill in her black silk dress, quite unconscious that she was holding the door against her mistress, and the mistress of that elegant brown stone mansion on whose threshold she stood.
"You are Captain Ernscliffe's housekeeper?" said Queenie.
"Yes, and I am left in charge of the house during his absence," answered the woman, bridling with a sense of her importance.
"I am a friend of Captain Ernscliffe," said Queenie, timidly. "Will you let me stay here to-night? I am homeless and penniless!"
The housekeeper favored her with a stare of scornful incredulity.