“Oh,” said Billie, turning to the widow.  “Were you the first person on the scene?  You couldn’t have seen much, it was so dark.  How did you know I was here?  I don’t suppose the robber made any noise.”

“It was very dark.  I should not have known, if—­if I had not smelt the smoke of the powder.”

“I thought perhaps you were going to say you heard the robber groan,” went on Billie.  “You see I hit him.  I think I must have a pretty good natural aim to shoot with the left hand in the dark and not fire wide of the mark.  But I don’t think he was very badly hurt.  He got away so fast.  I just winged him, I suppose.”

“How do you know you shot him?” asked Mme. Fontaine.

Miss Helen pointed dramatically to the blood stains on the floor.

Suddenly the widow’s lips turned quite white and a blue line appeared around her mouth.  She swayed slightly and Mr. Campbell caught her.  Billie was on her feet in a moment and they laid her on the couch.

“Unfasten her wrap,” ordered Miss Campbell.

“No, no,” said Mme. Fontaine in a very weak, thin voice.  “The sight of blood—­” she closed her eyes.  “I shall be all right in a moment.”  Beads of perspiration appeared on her forehead and she shivered with a chill.

“I think Mme. Fontaine had better stay here to-night.  She’s too ill to get back to town,” said Mr. Campbell.

“Oh, do,” echoed the girls, and Miss Campbell added hospitably: 

“We shall be so glad.”

“I am quite well now,” said the widow rising unsteadily to her feet.  “You will forgive me, I hope.  It is a faintness that comes to me at the sight of blood.  Will you call my ’riksha now, Mr. Campbell?  I must be going.  I won’t try to shake hands,” she added, reaching the door.  “I am still so light in the head, I am afraid of the effort.  But I want to thank you for a delightful evening.  I am only sorry it ended so disastrously.”

Making a ceremonious Oriental bow to Miss Campbell and smiling and nodding to the others, she left the room followed by Mr. Campbell and the four girls.

“No one has told me yet what the shots were in the garden,” announced Billie after the widow had departed.

“There was nothing to tell.  We never found anything at all,” answered Nicholas.

The next morning Mr. Campbell engaged another night watchman.  His duty was to patrol the inside of the house, making his rounds every hour through the halls and living rooms.  Between times he sat in the library.

CHAPTER XL

THE COMET DISGUISED.

“Where is Onoye, O’Haru?” Miss Campbell asked, a few days after the excitement in the library.

“Honorable Madam, Onoye much business.”

To Miss Campbell, a seasoned housekeeper, this reply seemed a little irregular.

“What kind of business, O’Haru?” she demanded rather severely.