How long I sat there, paralized with emotion, I do not know.  Hannah came out and roused me from my Trance of grief.  She is a kindly soul, although to afraid of mother to be helpful.

“Come in like a good girl, Miss Bab,” she said.  “There’s that fruit salad that cook prides herself on, and I’ll ask her to brown a bit of sweetbread for you.”

“Hannah,” I said in a low voice, “there is a Crime being committed in this neighborhood, and you talk to me of food.”

“Good gracious, Miss Bab!”

“I cannot tell you any more than that, Hannah,” I said gently, “because it is only being done now, and I cannot make up my Mind about it.  But of course I do not want any food.”

As I say, I was perfectly gentle with her, and I do not understand why she burst into tears and went away.

I sat and thought it all over.  I could not leave, under the circumstances.  But yet, what was I to do?  It was hardly a Police matter, being between friends, as one may say, and yet I simply could not bare to leave my Ideal there in that damp bath-house without either food or, as one may say, raiment.

About the middle of the afternoon it occurred to me to try to find a key for the lock of the bath-house.  I therfore left my Studio and proceded to the house.  I passed close by the fatal building, but there was no sound from it.

I found a number of trunk-keys in a drawer in the library, and was about to escape with them, when father came in.  He gave me a long look, and said: 

“Bee still buzzing?”

I had hoped for some understanding from him, but my Spirits fell at this speach.

“I am still working, father,” I said, in a firm if nervous tone.  “I am not doing as good work as I would if things were diferent, but—­I am at least content, if not happy.”

He stared at me, and then came over to me.

“Put out your tongue,” he said.

Even against this crowning infamey I was silent.

“That’s all right,” he said.  “Now see here, Chicken, get into your riding togs and we’ll order the horses.  I don’t intend to let this play-acting upset your health.”

But I refused.  “Unless, of course, you insist,” I finished.  He only shook his head, however, and left the room.  I felt that I had lost my Last Friend.

I did not try the keys myself, but instead stood off a short distance and through them through the window.  I learned later that they struck Mr. Beecher on the head.  Not knowing, of course, that I had flung them, and that my reason was pure Friendliness and Idealizm, he through them out again with a violent exclamation.  They fell at my feet, and lay there, useless, regected, tradgic.

At last I summoned courage to speak.

“Can’t I do somthing to help?” I said, in a quaking voice, to the window.

There was no anser, but I could hear a pen scraching on paper.

“I do so want to help you,” I said, in a louder tone.