“I know; Nixon told me.  Would you—­would you mind,”—­how hard she strove to show only the indignant curiosity natural to the situation—­“do you object, I mean, to going down and seeing?”

“Not at all,” I cheerfully answered, glad enough of this chance to settle my own doubts.  And with a last glance at her face, which was far too white and drawn to please me, I hastened below.

The lights had not yet been put out in the halls, though I saw none in the drawing-room or library.  Indeed, I ran upon Nixon coming from the library, where he had evidently been attending to his final duties of fastening windows and extinguishing lights.  Alive to the advantage of this opportune meeting, I addressed him with as little aggressiveness as possible.

“Mrs. Packard has sent me down to see who laughed just now so loudly.  Was it you?”

Strong and unmistakable dislike showed in his eyes, but his voice was restrained and apparently respectful as he replied:  “No, Miss.  I didn’t laugh.  There was nothing to laugh at.”

“You heard the laugh?  It seemed to come from somewhere here.  I was on the third floor and I heard it plainly.”

His face twitched—­a habit of his when under excitement, as I have since learned—­as with a shrug of his old shoulders he curtly answered: 

“You were listening; I was not.  If any one laughed down here I didn’t hear ’em.”

Confident that he was lying, I turned quietly away and proceeded down the hall toward Mayor Packard’s study.

“I wish to speak to the mayor,” I explained.

“He’s not there.”  The man had eagerly followed me.  “He’s not come home yet, Miss.”

“But the gas is burning brightly inside and the door ajar.  Some one is there.”

“It is Mr. Steele.  He came in an hour ago.  He often works here till after midnight.”

I had heard what I wanted to know, but, being by this time at the very threshold, I could not forbear giving the door a slight push, so as to catch at least a momentary glimpse of the man he spoke of.

He was sitting at his post, and as he neither looked up nor stirred at my intrusion, I had an excellent opportunity for observing again the clear-cut profile which had roused my admiration the day before.

Certainly, seen as I saw it now, in the concentrated glow of a lamp shaded from every other corner of the room, it was a face well worth looking at.  Seldom, perhaps never, had I beheld one cast in a more faultless mold.  Smooth-shaven, with every harmonious line open to view, it struck the eye with the force and beauty of a cameo; masculine strength and feminine grace equally expressed in the expansive forehead and the perfectly modeled features.  Its effect upon the observer was instantaneous, but the heart was not warmed nor the imagination awakened by it.  In spite of the perfection of the features, or possibly because of this perfection, the whole countenance