I was shaking so my knees would hardly
hold me. All I could think of was that they had swallowed Mr. Pierce,
bait and hook, and that for a time we were saved, although in the
electric light Mr. Pierce was a good bit less like Dicky Carter than he
had seemed to be in the spring-house by the fire.
Well, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
Everybody went to bed early. Mr. Thoburn came over and bought a cigar on
his way up-stairs, and he was as gloomy as he had been cheerful before.
"Well," I said, "I guess you won't put a dancing floor in the
dining-room just yet, Mr. Thoburn."
"I'm not in a hurry," he snapped. "It's only January, and I don't want
the place until May. I'll get it when I'm ready for it. I had a good
look at young Carter, and he's got too square a jaw to run a successful
neurasthenics' home."
I went to the pantry myself at ten o'clock and fixed a tray of supper
for Mr. Pierce. He would need all his strength the next day, and a man
can't travel far on buttered pop-corn. I found some chicken and got a
bottle of the old doctor's wine--I had kept the key of his wine-cellar
since he died--and carried the tray up to Mr. Pierce's sitting-room. He
had the old doctor's suite.
The door was open an inch or so, and as I was about to knock I heard a
girl's voice. It was Miss Patty!
"How can you deny it?" she was saying angrily. "I dare say you will even
deny that you ever saw this letter before!"
There was a minute's pause while I suppose he looked at the letter.
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