“No, miss; the girls are all busy—­they have their own work to do, and I shall have to bear it as best I can.”

“Then let me help you,” Mona said, a sudden thought setting all her pulses bounding.

Perhaps she might come across that dress!

“You, miss!” the girl cried, in unfeigned astonishment.  “A young lady like you help to make beds in a hotel where you are a guest!”

Mona laughed.

“I have often made beds, and—­I am not regarded as a ‘young lady’ just now; I am only a kind of waiting-maid to the lady with whom I am traveling,” she explained, thinking she might the more easily gain her point if the girl was led to think the difference in their positions was not as great as she had imagined.  “Come now,” she added, “I am going to help you, for I know you are not able to do all this work yourself,” and she immediately began to assist in putting her own chamber to rights.

They went from room to room, Mona chatting pleasantly and trying to take the girl’s mind from her pain; but she saw that it was almost more than she could do to keep about her work.

Finally she made her sit down and let her work alone.

“How many rooms are there yet to be cared for?” she asked, as she began to spread up the bed where they were.

“Only four more, miss—­just what are left in this hall,” said the girl, as her head fell wearily back against the high rocker which Mona had insisted upon her taking.

Mona went on with the work she had volunteered to perform, and when she returned to look at the girl again, she found that she was sleeping heavily.

“Exhausted nature has asserted itself, and I will let her rest,” the young girl murmured; “there can be no possible harm in my doing this work for her, although I suppose it would not be thought just the thing for a stranger to have access to all these rooms.”

She put everything there as it should be, then she went out, softly closing the door after her, that no one might see the girl sleeping.

She proceeded to do the four remaining apartments without finding what she sought until she came to the very last one.

As she entered it she picked up a card that had been dropped upon the floor, and a joyful thrill ran through her as she read the name, “Mrs. J.M.  Walton.”

She knew, then, that she had found the room occupied by the woman who had worn the gray dress.

Would she find the garment?

A trunk stood in one corner of the room, and her eyes rested covetously upon this.  Then she went to the wardrobe and swung the door open.

Joy! the robe she sought was hanging on a peg within!

With trembling hands she sought for the rent which she had seen the day but one before.

She found it, and with fluctuating color and a rapidly beating heart, she took hold of the knot of the silk, which had been used to mend it, and deliberately pulled it out, when the ragged edges fell apart, revealing a triangular-shaped rent.