She knocked at the door. There was no answer. She opened it. There
was no one there, but the light on the terrace below, thrown from the
windows of the lower room, was proof to her that Janet was in her
sitting-room, and she began to descend the private stairs that led
down to it. She was as light in figure and in step as ever, and her
soft slippers made no noise as she went down. The door in the
wainscot was open, and from the foot of the stairs she had a strange
view. Janet's candle was on the chair behind her, in front of it lay
half-a-dozen different keys, and she herself was kneeling before the
bureau, trying one of the keys into the lock. It would not fit, and
in turning to try another, she first saw the white figure, and
started violently at the first moment, then, as the trembling,
pleading voice said, "Janet," she started to her feet, and cried out
angrily—-
"Am I to be always spied and dogged?"
"Hush, Janet," said her mother, in a voice of grave reproof, "I
simply came to speak to you about the distressing loss of what your
father put in my charge."
"And why should I know anything about it?" demanded Janet.
"You were the last person who had access to the davenport," said her
mother.
"This is that child Barbara's foolish nonsense," muttered Janet to
herself.
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