“You look the worst of the two,” said the guard, giving her a keen glance.
“I’m all right,” she protested stoutly.
To the girl, whom she had assisted to her feet, she said, “You may come with me if you wish. Our store’s only two blocks away. There’s a rest room. You’ll be all right there until you sort of get your bearings. Perhaps I can help you.”
“I’d—I’d be glad to,” said the other, clinging to her impulsively.
So they left the museum together. Though she kept a sharp watch to right and left, Lucile caught no sign of the volunteer brother, but she shivered once or twice at the very thought of him.
* * * * * * * *
It was a very much perplexed Lucile who curled up in her big chair that night for a few moments of quiet thought before retiring.
A new mystery had been added to her already well filled list of strange doings. “First,” she said to herself, telling them off like beads on a rosary, “there comes the beautiful mystery woman and the cape she left behind; then Laurie Seymour and the vanishing author; then the crimson thread; and now this girl.”
As she whispered this last she nodded toward the bed. There, lying wrapped in slumber, was the beautiful girl she had saved in the museum.
“She’s even more beautiful in sleep than when awake,” Lucile murmured. “And such a strange creature! She hasn’t told me a thing.”