"Wait," I said, "tell me where her room is, hers and yours."

"Hers is the third story back, mine the front one on the same floor."

"Who are you?" I now inquired. "What position do you occupy in Mr.
Blake's house?"

"I am the housekeeper."

Mr. Blake was a bachelor.

"And you were wakened last night by hearing whispering which seemed to
come from this girl's room."

"Yes, I at first thought it was the folks next door,--we often hear
them when they are unusually noisy,--but soon I became assured it
came from her room; and more astonished than I could say,--She is a
good girl," she broke in, suddenly looking at me with hotly indignant
eyes, "a--a--as good a girl as this whole city can show; don't you
dare, any of you, to hint at anything else o--"

"Come, come," I said soothingly, a little ashamed of my too
communicative face, "I haven't said anything, we will take it for
granted she is as good as gold, go on."

The woman wiped her forehead with a hand that trembled like a leaf.
"Where was I?" said she. "O, I heard voices and was surprised and got
up and went to her door. The noise I made unlocking my own must have
startled her, for all was perfectly quiet when I got there. I waited a
moment, then I turned the knob and called her: she did not reply and