"Please spare me unless you are in danger," replied the lady addressed as Lydia. "Perhaps it will be just as well if you can not get in."
No light appeared at any of the windows, though the visit of an automobile might well have aroused some one. The lady and gentleman walked through the pergola and into the court to the front door, and the lady drew a key from her purse. "Odd that you kept the keys all these years," said the gentleman.
"Yes, isn't it?" the lady replied, trying the key. It turned, but there was a bolt of some sort within. "There is another door, Francis," she said, and they walked around to the rear door, where another key was inserted. "Honestly, my courage almost fails me, Francis."
"Why don't you ring, then, instead of getting in this foolish way?"
"I always was a little foolish, Francis, as you well know, and I am just a little afraid to meet my--why, this lets me in, Francis. Now I shall be safely inside till morning at least, and if I can reach my room without meeting old P'lina, I shall gain courage from the old background. Goodnight and thank you." The door closed and the man called Francis walked back to the car, entered it and drove away.
But none of them had seen a dark figure which kept to the shadows and which stood behind a tree when the lady entered the house. Waiting a little, listening at the door, it, too, entered at the back of the old house.
The lady, with a small flashlight, hurried rather breathlessly up the back stairs and stood smiling a little, hesitating between routes, and fingering a small bunch of keys. No one could see her smiles in the dark, to be sure, but by a sudden impulse she turned to the attic stairs, opened the door there and disappeared from the ken of the man listening at the foot of the first flight. Stealthily he followed, occasionally letting the light in his hand fall before him. But he was familiar with the place, it would have been evident to any one who had seen him.
At the attic door, which stood ajar, he paused, looking within at the small light which proceeded a little slowly into the depths beyond.
"Mercy,--I had forgotten how dusty attics are!" he heard her say, as she drew aside the carpet, which had been replaced, and opened the trap door. "Now, if only I don't break my neck!"