The Mystery Girl

“Yes – madam – but – I do not know. And Nogi – he is gone.”

“Gone! Where to?”

“That also, I do not know. Will madam come and look?”

“No; I will not! I know something has happened! I knew something would happen! Ito, he is not asleep – he is – ”

“Don’t say it, madam. We do not know.”

“Find out! Go in and speak to him.”

“But the door is locked. I tried it.”

“Locked! The study door locked, and Doctor Waring still in there? How do you know?”

“I peeped from the dining-room window – and I could see him, leaning down on his desk.”

“From the dining-room window! What do you mean?”

“The small little inside windows. Madam knows?”

The study had been added to the Waring house after the house had been built for some years. Wherefore, the dining-room, previously with a lake view from its windows, was cut off from that view. But, the windows, three small, square ones, remained, and so, looked into the new study.

However, the study, a higher ceiling being desired, had its floor sunken six feet or more, which brought the windows far too high to see through from the study side, but one could look through them from the dining-room. The original sashes had been replaced by beautiful stained glass, opaque save for a few tiny transparent bits through which a persistent and curious-minded person might discern some parts of the study.

The stained glass sashes were immovable, and were there more as a decoration than for utility’s sake.