NOWING that the ordeal of facing them all would grow more formidable the longer I waited, I nerved myself to go down to dinner, even with Bijou's ill-natured words ringing in my ears and capping the climax of the day's unhappiness. Lorna greeted me pleasantly, quite as if nothing at all unusual had occurred, and the rest took their cues from her, so after the first few minutes everything was easier.
Mrs. Smith proposed bridge immediately afterward, but I excused myself and went to my room. I wrote a long letter to Miss Farmingdale, explaining the circumstances as well as I could, and another to Daddy, telling him everything that had occurred, save the fact of Gilbert's identity. I wanted to see his face when I told him that.
I let him know very plainly what I thought of the family, and my plans for putting myself under the protection of Miss Farmingdale, and I begged him to come home to me as soon as ever he could.
It was long past midnight when I had finished, and the house was dark and still. I took my night light, and going softly downstairs, placed the letters on the hall table. Then I undressed and went to bed, but sleep would not come to me. I lay staring into the darkness, unable to turn my thoughts from the hideously unpleasant position in which I was placed. This was Friday. It would be Monday before my letter would reach Miss Farmingdale, provided someone took it to the mainland the next morning—and Wednesday at least, before she could come for me. There were four or five days more ahead of me on that island, in any event, and I dreaded to think of them. There was a possibility, too, that Miss Farmingdale would decline to interfere, until she heard from Daddy, but I would not let my mind dwell on that.
How long I lay restlessly tossing about, I don't know, but all at once I heard soft footfalls in the hall, and the barest perceptible ray of light crept through the crack between my door and sill, and, traveling across the room, disappeared. Who could be prowling about the house at that hour? I sat up in bed and listened. The person, whoever it was, had descended the stairs. On a sudden impulse I sprang up, drew my dark dressing-gown about my shoulders, and opening my door noiselessly, inch by inch, I crossed the landing, and peeped down over the balustrade.
A muffled figure, holding a tiny electric candle, stood beside the hall table and as I watched, it moved toward the library door, and vanished.
I waited breathlessly, and saw a strong light spring up, and then the door silently closed.
Who could it have been? I was sure that the figure was that of a woman, not a man.
It seemed to me that an hour or more passed as I stood there clinging to the balustrade, waiting for that figure to reappear. I wanted to satisfy myself, to see who it really was. At length, so suddenly that I drew back in fear lest I should be discovered, the library door opened, and the figure appeared upon the threshold. The lamp in the room behind her had been extinguished, and the sharp white rays from the light she carried, shone full upon her. It was Mrs. Smith, and upon her face was stamped an expression of malignant fury which turned my blood cold.
Shuddering, I fled back to my room, closed the door silently, and crept into bed. For the first time in my life I was afraid! I had never seen such a look upon any human creature before. She had seemed like some ferocious, snarling beast about to spring! I felt that if she had discovered me spying on her, she would have struck me down without mercy. She had looked capable of murder, anything!
What could have happened, and at this hour, to put her in such a fiendish rage? And what had she been doing in that hall, at the table
Then a swift thought flashed across my mind, and a cold feeling settled about my heart, like the clutch of an icy hand. My letters! She had read my letters I It was a horrible, low suspicion to harbor, even against her, but it took instant possession of me. I felt that at all costs I must know if it were justified.
The light reappeared under my door, the footsteps passed, and darkness enveloped me again. I lay quaking in every limb, listening for the striking of the tall old clock on the stairs. At length it came: one, two! I waited until it boomed the half hour, and then, nerving myself desperately against the choking fear which gripped me by the throat, I stepped from my bed, and felt about my table until my fingers closed over the box of matches. I would not dare to strike a light until I reached the hall below, but once there I must be able to ascertain if my letters had been disturbed.