worn-out garment, and she spoke in the reedy voice of burnt-out forces.

“I’ve a job. Keep putting it off. Weak of me. But it is a job no one likes. Is it?”

Helen guessed immediately that she referred to her will.

“No,” she replied. “Everyone puts it off.”

And then, because she could not resist her interest in the affairs of others, she added a bit of advice.

“But we all of us have to do it. It must be done.”

But Lady Warren was not listening. The eclipse was rapidly passing, for her eyes grew alert as they slanted acrossto the small bundle on the table.

“Bring. it to me,” she said.

“No,” replied Helen. “Better not.”

“Fool. What are you afraid of? It’s only my spectacle case.”

“Yes, I know it is. I’m ever so sorry, my lady, but I’m only a machine. I have to obey Miss Warren’s orders. And she told me I was only to sit and watch.”

It was plain that Lady Warren was not used to opposition. Her eyes blazed, and her fingers hooked to talons, as she clawed her throat.

“Go,” she gasped. “Get-Miss-Warren.”

Helen rushed from the room-almost glad of the attack, since the crisis of the revolver was postponed. As she reached the door, she looked back and saw that Lady Warren had collapsed upon her pillows.’

A second later, the invalid raised her head. There was a stir amid the bedclothes, and two feet, in bed-socks, emerged from under the eiderdown, as Lady Warren slipped out of bed.

CHAPTER VI

ILLUSION

 

Her heart beating fast with mingled exhilaration and fear, Helen hurried to Miss Warren’s room. For the first time in her life, she was up against unknown possibilities. Unlike the other houses in which she had worked, the Summit provided a background..

It was true that Mrs. Oates had heartlessly plucked the mystery from the last tree in the plantation, so that Helen was forced to accept him as the yokel lover of a rustic beauty; yet there remained material for macabre drama in the savage muffled landscape and the overhanging shadow of murder.

The old woman, too, with her overtures and her gleaming artificial smile, supplied a touch of real horror. She might be only a bedridden invalid, but the fact remained that she was under suspicion of having sent her husband prematurely to heaven or to hell.

Her sting might be drawn, but her desires were still lethal. Helen had, proof of this in the incident of the revolver.

Her thoughts, however, slipped back to practical subjects, when, as she turned the handle of Miss Warren’s room, t once again slipped round in her grasp.

“I really must get at it the instant I have a chance,” she promised herself.

Miss Warren was sitting at her bureau, under the green light. Her eyes were fixed upon her book.

“Well?” she asked wearily, as, Helen entered.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” began Helen, “but Lady War–”

Before she could finish her sentence, Miss Warren was out of her chair, and crossing the room with the ungainly gait of a giraffe.

In her element, Helen followed her to the blue room. Lady Warren was lying as she had left her, with closed eyes and puffing lips. The revolver, wrapped in the silk handkerchief, was still on the kidney table, and the width of the room remote from the bed.

Yet there was some change, Helen, who was observant, noticed the fact, at once, and, in her second survey, traced it to its cause. When she had gone to fetch Miss Warren, the bedclothes were disordered. Now, the sheet was drawn down over the eiderdown, as neatly as though it had been arranged by a hospital nurse.

“Miss Capel,” said Miss Warren, who was bending over the prostrate figure of her step-mother, “fetch the oxygen-cylinder.”

Helen, who was always ready to experiment with. unfamiliar properties, hurried to lug it across to the bed. She thoughtfully unscrewed the top, and managed to get awhiff of air, like a mountain breeze, before she surrendered it to Miss Warren.

Presently, Lady Warren revived under their joint ministrations.