CANDACE CAMERON paced her little gabled room restively, with face growing redder and more excited at every step.  For several weeks now she had been virtually a prisoner-albeit a willing enough one-in the house of Stanhope.  But the time had come when she felt that she must do something.

She had gone quietly enough about a proscribed part of the house, doing little helpful things, making herself most useful to the madam, slipping here and there with incredible catlike tread for so plump a body, managing to overhear important conversations, and melting away like a wraith before her presence was discovered.  She had made herself so unobtrusive as to be almost forgotten by all save the maid Marie, who had been set to watch her; and she had learned that if she went to bed quite early in the evening, Marie relaxed her watch and went down to the servants’ quarters, or even sometimes went out with a lover for a while, that is, if the madam herself happened to be out also.  On several such occasions she had made valuable tours of investigation through the madam’s desk and private papers.

That she was overstepping her privileges as a servant in the house went without saying, but she silenced her Scotch conscience, which until this period of her existence had always kept her strictly from meddling with other people’s affairs, by declaring over and over again to herself that she was doing perfectly right because she was doing it for the sake of “that poor wee thing that was being cheated of her rights.”

Several weeks had passed since her sudden re-establishment in the family, and the reports of Betty, so hastily readjusted and refurbished to harmonize with the newspaper reports, had not been any more satisfying.  Mrs. Stanhope had explained to the servants the day after the excitement that Miss Betty had become temporarily deranged, and later that she had escaped from the private hospital where she had been taken, and they were doing all in their power to find her.  In reply to Candace’s gimlet-like questions she had given the name of a hospital where she said Betty had been taken at first, and everything seemed altogether plausible.  But as the days went by and the horror of her absence grew into the soul of the lonely woman whose care Betty had been for years, Candace became more and more restive and suspicious.  It was these suspicions which sent her on her investigations, and made her uncannily wise to pry open secret locks and cover all trace of her absence after she had gleaned what knowledge she sought.

On this particular evening her excitement was due to having come across some correspondence bearing the signature of a man to whom a certain letter had been addressed, which had been entrusted to her charge by Betty’s dying father and taken from her by his wife.  For years she had been worried about that, and yet she had no absolute reason to doubt that the madam had not sent it to its destination, except as she knew its contents and read Mrs. Stanhope’s character beneath the excellent camouflage.  But to-night, even the briefest glance through the bundle of letters showed plainly that those men in Boston never knew the master’s wishes, or at least, if they knew them, they were utterly disregarding them.

Aroused on one point, her suspicions began to extend further.  Where was Betty?  Did her stepmother know, and was she somewhere suffering, alone, perhaps being neglected because she had not done as they wanted her to do?  If the stepmother was capable of destroying a letter, was she perhaps not also capable of putting Betty out of the way?  There were points of detail which of course did not harmonize with any such theory as this.  Candace was no logician, but she was keen enough to feel that something was wrong.  As for that theory of Betty’s insanity she scouted it with a harsh laugh whenever it was mentioned in her hearing.  Betty-keen, sweet, trusting little Betty insane!  Nonsense!  It was unthinkable.  If she was in an asylum anywhere she was there without warrant, and it behoved her faithful old nurse to find a way out for her.  This she meant to do against all odds, for she was thoroughly aroused now.

She went to the window and looked down into the lighted street.  Over there not four blocks away rose the steeple of the church where Betty had gone to be married!  Around the corner was the great brick pile of the hospital where her stepmother said she had been taken from the church, and from which she was believed by the other servants to have escaped.

Standing thus looking out into the light-starred city, Candace began to form a plan, her plump tightly garmented chest rising and falling excitedly as she thought it all out.  It was up to her to find out what had become of Betty.  But how was she to get away without being suspected?  Somehow she must do it.  She knew perfectly the address that had been on that letter.  She had written it down carefully from memory as soon as it had been taken away from her.  She must go to Boston and find that man to whom it had been written, and discover whether he had ever received it.  But she could not go until she found out certainly whether or not Betty had ever really escaped from the hospital.  Who knew but that she was shut up there yet, and the madam telling this tale all about and advertising with a five thousand dollar reward!  In the movies, too!  Such a disgrace on the family!  How the master would have writhed at the publicity of his beloved daughter-“poor wee thing!”

Candace turned from the window with her lips set, and tiptoeing to the door, listened.  Yes, it was Aileen who was coming lightly up the stairs, singing in a low tone.  It was Aileen’s evening out.  That meant that Marie would be more than usually active on the upper floor.  She must manage it before Aileen left and Marie was called upstairs, or there would be no opportunity to get away without Marie seeing her.

Hastily she gathered her silk dress, her cloak and her apoplectic hat into a bundle with her purse and her gloves, and tied them into an old apron, with the strings hanging free.  Then stealthily opening the window, she dropped them out into the kitchen area below, close to the region of the ash cans.  It was a risk, of course, but one must take some chances, and the servants would all be in the kitchen just now, laughing and talking.  They would scarcely have heard it fall.

She listened a tense instant, then closed the window, and possessing herself of a few little things, gathered hastily about the room, which she could stuff in her pockets, she opened her door softly, closed it behind her, and trotted off down the stairs just as if she were going about her ordinary duty.  Listening a minute outside the kitchen door she slipped stealthily down the cellar stairs, and tiptoed over to the area door where the ashman took out the ashes.  Softly slipping the bolt she opened the door and drew in her bundle.  Then standing within, she quickly slipped the black silk over her housemaid’s gown, donned her coat and hat and gloves, and sallied forth.  A moment more and she was in the next street with the consciousness that she “might have done the like any time sooner, if she’d wanted, in spite of that little spy-cat Marie.”

“If I want to go back I’ll just say I went after my insurance book,” she chuckled to herself as she sped down the street in the direction of the hospital.

Arrived at the big building she asked to see the list of patients taken in on the day of Betty’s wedding, and succeeded in getting a pretty accurate description of each one, sufficient at least to satisfy her that Betty was not among them.  Then she asked a few more bold questions, and came away fully convinced that Betty had never been in that hospital.

By this time it was nine o’clock, and she meant to take the evening train for Boston, which left, she was sure, somewhere near midnight.  She took a trolley to her old lodgings where she had been since Mrs. Stanhope had sent her away the first time, and hastily packed a small hand bag with a few necessities, made a few changes in her garments, then went to see a fellow lodger whom she knew well, and where she felt sure she could easily get a check cashed, for she had a tidy little bank account of her own, and was well known to be reliable.

Having procured the necessary funds, she made her way to the station and found that she had still an hour to spare before the Boston train left.

Settled down at last in the back seat of a common car, she made herself as comfortable as her surroundings would allow, and gave herself up to planning the campaign that was before her.

Canny Candace did not go at once to the office of the brothers, James and George McIntyre, though she looked them up in the telephone book the very first thing when the train arrived in Boston even before she had had a bite to eat, and her cup of tea which meant more to her than the “bite.”  She reasoned that they would be busy in the early hours and not be able to give her their undivided attention.  She had not lived out all her life for nothing.  She knew the ways of the world, and she had very strict ideas about the best ways of doing everything.  So it happened that when she was at last shown into the office of the McIntyres, Warren Reyburn who had traveled to Boston on the sleeper of the same train that she had taken the night before, was just arising from an earnest conference with the two men.  With her first glance, as the three emerged from the inner office, Candace saw that the two elder gentlemen were much disturbed and it flitted through her mind that she had come at an inopportune moment.  Then her quick eye took in the younger man and her little alert head cocked to one side with a questioning attitude.  Where had she seen him before?  Candace had the kind of a mind that kept people and events card-indexed even to the minutest detail, and it didn’t take many seconds for her to place Warren Reyburn back in the church at the wedding, standing against the wall with his arms folded.  She had noticed him particularly because he was so courteous to a little old lady who came in too late to get a seat.  She had studied him as he stood there, waiting for the wedding march, and she had thought how handsome he looked and how fine it would have been if her wee Betty had been getting a man like that in place of the weak-faced Bessemer Hutton.  She had watched to see who he was with, and felt deep satisfaction when she noticed him lean over and speak to Mrs. Bryce Cochrane as if he belonged to her.  He wasn’t her husband, because she knew Mr. Cochrane, who had been a favorite with Mr. Stanhope and much at the house.  This man might be Mrs. Cochrane’s brother “or the likes,” and she had pleased herself watching him till Betty arrived and took all her thoughts.  So now she stood with her little round head in its hectic hat tilted interestedly to one side, watching, ears on the keen to catch any word, for all the world like a “bit brown sparrow” saucily perched on another man’s window, where it really had no right to be.

At last one of the McIntyre’s shook hands gravely with the younger man, and the other one attended him to the door, talking in low tones.  The McIntyre thus set at liberty, turned questioningly toward the stranger, who was not slow in getting to her feet and coming forward.

“You will maybe be Mr. James McIntyre?” she asked, lifting her sea-blue eyes set in her apple-red face, and fixing her firm little lips in dignity.  Candace was a servant and knew her place, but she felt the importance of her mission, and meant to have no disrespect done to it.

“I am Mr. George McIntyre,” the gentleman replied, and, indicating the man at the door, “Mr. James McIntyre will be at liberty in a moment, but perhaps I will do as well?”

Candace cocked a glance toward the elderly back at the door; and then returned her look to Mr. George: 

“You’ll maybe be knowing Mr. Charles Stanhope?” she propounded, as if she were giving him a riddle, and her blue eyes looked him through and through: 

“Oh, surely, surely!  He was a very close friend!  You-knew him?”

“I was Miss Betty’s nurse who cooked the griddle cakes for you the morning after the funeral -” she said, and waited with breathless dignity to see how he would take it.

“Oh!  Is that so!” He beamed on her kindly.  “Yes, yes, I remember those cakes.  They were delicious!  And what can I do for you?  Just sit down.  Why, bless me, I don’t know but that your coming may be very opportune!  Can you tell me anything of Miss Betty?”

Candace pressed her lips together with a knowing smile as much as to say she might tell volumes if it were wise, and she cast a glance at the other brother who was shaking hands now with his visitor and promising to meet him a little later: 

“Yon man’ll be knowing a bit, too, I’ll be thinking,” she hazarded nodding toward Reyburn as he left.  “He was at the wedding, I’m most sure !”

The elder McIntyre gave her a quick glance and signalled to his brother to come near: 

“This is Miss Stanhope’s nurse, the one who cooked breakfast for us at the time of the funeral,” he said, and to Candace, “This is Mr. James McIntyre.”

Candace fixed him with another of her inquisitive little glances: 

“I’ve some bit papers put by that I thought ye might like to see,” she said with a cautious air.  “I’ve kept them fer long because I thought they might be wanted sometime, yet I’ve never dared bring them to your notice before lest I would be considered meddlin’, and indeed I wasn’t sure but you had them already.  Will you please to look over them papers and see if you’ve ever seen them before?” She drew forth an envelope from her bag and handed it to them.  “It’s a bit letter that Mr. Stanhope wrote the day he was dyin’ an’ then copied and give to me to mail, and his lady took it away, sayin’ she would attend to it.  What I want to know is, did ye ever get the letter?  If ye did it’s all right and none of my business further, an’ I’ll go on my way back home again and think no more about it; but if ye didn’t then there it is, an’ you ought to see it, that’s sure!”

The two men drew eagerly together and studied the trembling lines: 

“It’s his writing all right,” murmured one, under his breath, and the brother nodded gravely: 

“You say that this was the original of a letter that was given to you to mail to us?”

Candace nodded.

“It’s what he wrote first, and got ink on it, an’ then wrote it over.  I can’t say what changes he made, as I didn’t read it, but this he gave to me to burn, and before I gets it burned my lady comes in and takes the letter from me while he was sleepin’; and so I hid the bit papers, thinkin’ they might be a help to wee Betty sometime.  And oh, can ye tell me anything of my little Lady Betty?  Is she safe?  Did she come to you for refuge?  You needn’t be afraid to tell me.  I’ll never breathe a word !”

The two brothers exchanged quick glances of warning and the elder man spoke: 

“My good woman, we appreciate your coming, and these papers may prove very useful to us.  We hope to be able to clear up this matter of Miss Stanhope’s disappearance very soon.  She did not come to us, however, and she is not here.  But if you will step into the room just beyond and wait for a little while we may be able to talk this matter over with you.”

Very courteously he ushered the plump, apprehensive little woman into the next room and established her in an easy leather chair with a quantity of magazines and newspapers about her, but she kept her little head cocked anxiously on one side, and watched the door like a dog whose master has gone in and shut the way behind him; and she never sat back in her chair nor relaxed one iota during the whole of the two hours that she had to wait before she was called at last to the inner office where she found the handsome young man whom she remembered seeing at the wedding.

She presently found that Reyburn was as keen as he was handsome, but if she hadn’t remembered him at the wedding as a friend of that nice Mrs. Cochrane, she never would have made it as easy as she did for him to find out things from her, for she could be canny herself on occasion if she tried, and she did not trust everybody.