“Don’t Agnes help you about breakfast?” asked Rebecca.

“No, I let her lay,” replied Mrs. Dent shortly.

“What time did she get home last night?”

“She didn’t get home.”

“What?”

“She didn’t get home.  She stayed with Addie.  She often does.”

“Without sending you word?”

“Oh, she knew I wouldn’t worry.”

“When will she be home?”

“Oh, I guess she’ll be along pretty soon.”

Rebecca was uneasy, but she tried to conceal it, for she knew of no good reason for uneasiness.  What was there to occasion alarm in the fact of one young girl staying overnight with another?  She could not eat much breakfast.  Afterward she went out on the little piazza, although her hostess strove furtively to stop her.

“Why don’t you go out back of the house?  It’s real pretty—­a view over the river,” she said.

“I guess I’ll go out here,” replied Rebecca.  She had a purpose:  to watch for the absent girl.

Presently Rebecca came hustling into the house through the sitting-room, into the kitchen where Mrs. Dent was cooking.

“That rose-bush!” she gasped.

Mrs. Dent turned and faced her.

“What of it?”

“It’s a-blowing.”

“What of it?”

“There isn’t a mite of wind this morning.”

Mrs. Dent turned with an inimitable toss of her fair head.  “If you think I can spend my time puzzling over such nonsense as—­” she began, but Rebecca interrupted her with a cry and a rush to the door.

“There she is now!” she cried.  She flung the door wide open, and curiously enough a breeze came in and her own gray hair tossed, and a paper blew off the table to the floor with a loud rustle, but there was nobody in sight.

“There’s nobody here,” Rebecca said.

She looked blankly at the other woman, who brought her rolling-pin down on a slab of pie-crust with a thud.

“I didn’t hear anybody,” she said calmly.

“I saw somebody pass that window!”

“You were mistaken again.”

“I know I saw somebody.”

“You couldn’t have.  Please shut that door.”

Rebecca shut the door.  She sat down beside the window and looked out on the autumnal yard, with its little curve of footpath to the kitchen door.

“What smells so strong of roses in this room?” she said presently.  She sniffed hard.

“I don’t smell anything but these nutmegs.”

“It is not nutmeg.”

“I don’t smell anything else.”

“Where do you suppose Agnes is?”

“Oh, perhaps she has gone over the ferry to Porter’s Falls with
Addie.  She often does.  Addie’s got an aunt over there, and
Addie’s got a cousin, a real pretty boy.”

“You suppose she’s gone over there?”

“Mebbe.  I shouldn’t wonder.”