Miss Althorpe, who was now half-way up the rich staircase which makes her house one of the most remarkable in the city, turned and gave me a quick look over her shoulder.
“I don’t know Mrs. Desberger,” she remarked.
At which I smiled. Did she think Mrs. Desberger in society?
At the end of an upper passage-way we paused.
“This is the door,” whispered Miss Althorpe. “Perhaps I had better go in first and see if she is at all prepared for company.”
I was glad to have her do so, for I felt as if I needed to prepare myself for encountering this young girl, over whom, in my mind, hung the dreadful suspicion of murder.
But the time between Miss Althorpe’s knock and her entrance, short as it was, was longer than that which elapsed between her going in and her hasty reappearance.
“You can have your wish,” said she. “She is lying on her bed asleep, and you can see her without being observed. But,” she entreated, with a passionate grip of my arm, which proclaimed her warm nature, “doesn’t it seem a little like taking advantage of her?”
“Circumstances justify it in this case,” I replied, admiring the consideration of my hostess, but not thinking it worth while to emulate it. And with very little ceremony I pushed open the door and entered the room of the so-called Ruth Oliver.
The hush and quiet which met me, though nothing more than I had reason to expect, gave me my first shock, and the young figure outstretched on a bed of dainty whiteness, my second. Everything about me was so peaceful, and the delicate blue and white of the room so expressive of innocence and repose, that my feet instinctively moved more softly over the polished floor and paused, when they did pause, before that dimly shrouded bed, with something like hesitation in their usually emphatic tread.
The face of that bed’s occupant, which I could now plainly see, may have had an influence in producing this effect. It was so rounded with health, and yet so haggard with trouble. Not knowing whether Miss Althorpe was behind me or not, but too intent upon the sleeping girl to care, I bent over the half-averted features and studied them carefully.
They were indeed Madonna-like, something which I had not expected, notwithstanding the assurances I had received to that effect, and while distorted with suffering, amply accounted for the interest shown in her by the good-hearted Mrs. Desberger and the cultured Miss Althorpe.
Resenting this beauty, which so poorly accommodated itself to the character of the woman who possessed it, I leaned nearer, searching for some defect in her loveliness, when I saw that the struggle and anguish visible in her expression were due to some dream she was having.
Moved, even against my will, by the touching sight of her trembling eyelids and working mouth, I was about to wake her when I was stopped by the gentle touch of Miss Althorpe on my shoulder.
“Is she the girl you are looking for?”
I gave one quick glance around the room, and my eyes lighted on the little blue pin-cushion on the satin-wood bureau.
“Did you put those pins there?” I asked, pointing to a dozen or more black pins grouped in one corner.
“I did not, no; and I doubt if Crescenze did. Why?”
I drew a small black pin from my belt where I had securely fastened it, and carrying it over to the cushion, compared it with those I saw. They were identical.