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“I am Mrs. Haldon,” she said. “I suppose you are the caretaker?”

Haldon was the name of the people to whom the house belonged. Jem Foster had heard only the vaguest things of them, but Jane remembered that the name was Haldon, and remembering that they had gone away because they had had trouble, she recognized at a glance what sort of trouble it had been. Mrs. Haldon was tall and young, and to Jane Foster’s mind, expressed from head to foot the perfection of all that spoke for wealth and fashion. Her garments were heavy and rich with crape, the long black veil, which she had thrown back, swept over her shoulder and hung behind her, serving to set forth, as it were, more pitifully the white wornness of her pretty face, and a sort of haunting eagerness in her haggard eyes. She had been a smart, lovely, laughing and lovable thing, full of pleasure in the world, and now she was so stricken and devastated that she seemed set apart in an awful lonely world of her own.

She had no sooner crossed the threshold than she looked about her with a quick, smitten glance and began to tremble. Jane saw her look shudder away from the open door of the front room, where the chairs had seemed left as if set for some gathering, and the wax-white flowers had been scattered on the floor.

She fell into one of the carved hall seats and dropped her face into her hands, her elbows resting on her knees.

“Oh! No! No!” she cried. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it!”

Jane Foster’s eyes filled with good-natured ready tears of sympathy.

“Won’t you come up-stairs, ma’am?” she said. “Wouldn’t you like to set in your own room perhaps?”

“No! No!” was the answer. “She was always there! She used to come into my bed in the morning. She used to watch me dress to go out. No! No!”

“I’ll open the shutters in the library,” said Jane.

“Oh! No! No! No! She would be sitting on the big sofa with her fairy story-book. She’s everywhere–everywhere! How could I come! Why did I! But I couldn’t keep away! I tried to stay in the mountains. But I couldn’t. Something dragged me day and night. Nobody knows I am here!” She got up and looked about her again. “I have never been in here since I went out with HER,” she said. “They would not let me come back. They said it would kill me. And now I have come–and everything is here–all the things we lived with–and SHE is millions and millions–and millions of miles away!”

“Who–who–was it?” Jane asked timidly in a low voice.

“It was my little girl,” the poor young beauty said. “It was my little Andrea. Her portrait is in the library.”

Jane began to tremble somewhat herself. “That–?” she began–and ended: “She is DEAD?”

Mrs. Haldon had dragged herself almost as if unconsciously to the stairs. She leaned against the newel post and her face dropped upon her hand.

“Oh! I don’t KNOW!” she cried. “I cannot believe it. How COULD it be? She was playing in her nursery–laughing and playing–and she ran into the next room to show me a flower–and as she looked up at me–laughing, I tell you–laughing–she sank slowly down on her knees–and the flower fell out of her hand quietly–and everything went out of her face–everything was gone away from her, and there was never anything more–never!”

Jane Foster’s hand had crept up to her throat. She did not know what made her cold.

“My little girl–” she began, “her name is Judith–“

“Where is she?” said Mrs. Haldon in a breathless way.

“She is up-stairs,” Jane answered slowly. “She goes–into that back room–on the fourth floor–“

Mrs. Haldon turned upon her with wide eyes.

“It is locked!” she said. “They put everything away. I have the key.”

“The door opens for her,” said Jane. “She goes to play with a little girl–who comes to her. I think she comes over the roof from the next house.”