girl seemed to have impressed the place with her dainty charm. It was beauty’s bower, a bright and scented nest, chintz bung, with white fur rugs on the floor and silken cushions which bore the impress of her light weight. Steeped in the morning sun, warm and [Pg 155]still, it extended its welcome as if waiting for her entrance. The signs of feminine occupation caught the eyes of the men and held them chilled on the threshold. Enhancements of her beauty were strewn on the bureau, the garments that had clothed her graceful body lay on the bed where her hand had thrown them. A delicate perfume filled the air, the fragrance of her passing habitation still lingering in ghostlike sweetness after the living presence had gone.

[Pg 155]

Rawson moved first, shaking off the spell. He looked into the open wardrobe trunk, completely packed but for the last hanger. “Going to put her costume there,” he said, touching it with his index finger. He pulled out the drawers and ran his eye over their contents. A gray crêpe dress lay across the foot of the bed, beside it a cloak and a black hat with a water-lily garnishing the brim. “These,” he said, “were the clothes left out to wear.”

Bassett nodded. He could see Sybil in the gray dress with her hair a golden fluff below the edge [Pg 156]of the black hat. She had worn them on the way up and been pleased when he had admired her costume.

[Pg 156]

They went over the desk; a few postage stamps and a writing tablet. But the desk had evidently not been used—the square of new blotting paper in the carved leather holder was unmarked. The waste-paper basket only contained a torn veil and the wrapper of a package of hair pins. On the bed-table was a book and a candy box containing two chocolate bonbons.

By the bureau an open bag stood on a chair. There was nothing in this but a book, one of the many treatises on self-development and the achievement of spiritual calm and control. Poor Sybil! Bassett turned away with a sick heart—had she found now what she had been striving for?

The dressing-table was the only place in the room that her neat arranging hand had not touched. It was covered with a litter of toilet articles, cold-cream jars, rouge boxes, powders and [Pg 157]scents, a silver hand mirror, a pair of long white gloves. Williams picked up a bead bag and opened it. It contained a wisp of handkerchief, a bunch of keys, a lip-stick and a gold change purse. In the central compartment were three 

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