I didn’t answer him; I couldn’t.  We went into the house; Mrs. Moody and Miss Cobb were sitting on the stairs.  Mrs. Moody had been crying, and Miss Cobb was feeding her the whisky I had left, with a teaspoon.  She had had a half tumblerful already and was quite maudlin.  She ran to me and put her arms around me.

“I thought I was a murderess!” she cried.  “Oh, the thought!  Blood on my soul!  Why, Minnie Waters, wherever did you get that sealskin coat!”

CHAPTER IX

Dolly, how could you?

I lay down across my bed at six o’clock that morning, but I was too tired and worried to sleep, so at seven I got up and dressed.

I was frightened when I saw myself in the glass.  My eyes looked like burnt holes in a blanket.  I put on two pairs of stockings and heavy shoes, for I knew I was going to do the Eskimo act again that day and goodness knows how many days more, and then I went down and knocked at the door of Miss Patty’s room.  She hadn’t been sleeping either.  She called to me in an undertone to come in, and she was lying propped up with pillows, with something pink around her shoulders and the night lamp burning beside the bed.  She had a book in her hand, but all over the covers and on the table at her elbow were letters in the blue foreign envelopes with the red and black and gold seal.

I walked over to the foot of the bed.

“They’re here,” I said.

She sat up, and some letters slid to the floor.

“They’re here!” she repeated.  “Do you mean Dorothy?”

“She and her husband.  They came last night at five minutes to twelve.  Their train was held up by the blizzard and they won’t come in until they see you.  They’re hiding in the shelter-house on the golf links.”

I think she thought I was crazy:  I looked it.  She hopped out of bed and closed the door into her sitting-room—­Mrs. Hutchins’ room opened off it—­and then she came over and put her hand on my arm.

“Will you sit down and try to tell me just what you mean?” she said.  “How can my sister and her—­her wretch of a husband have come last night at midnight when I saw Mr. Carter myself not later than ten o’clock?”

Well, I had to tell her then about who Mr. Pierce was and why I had to get him, and she understood almost at once.  She was the most understanding girl I ever met.  She saw at once what Mr. Sam wouldn’t have known in a thousand years—­that I wanted to save the old place not to keep my position—­but because I’d been there so long, and my father before me, and had helped to make it what it was and all that.  And she stood there in her nightgown—­she who was almost a princess—­and listened to me, and patted me on the shoulder when I broke down, telling her about Thoburn and the summer hotel.

“But here I am,” I finished, “telling you about my troubles and forgetting what I came for.  You’ll have to go out to the shelter-house, Miss Patty.  And I guess you’re expected to fix it up with your father.”