upon the other side, and he started toward it across the hall, but halted suddenly to inspect the sweep of the handsome, wide stairs. He went up hesitatingly, step by step, and at the top he listened. The silence assured him that there was no one on this floor either. He crossed to the nearest lighted bedroom; and this room—done in white and gold, with connecting dressing room and bath—set him to dancing deliriously. He patted the lace counterpane upon the bed with his damp and dirty hands, and picked up and examined the white toilet articles, monogrammed in gold, upon the dresser. He went to look in on the white and gilt of the tiled bath. But he caught himself about, checked and startled and stiffened by the sound of a motor which had stopped outside the house.
He ran out to the head of the stairs in panic. Unquestionably someone was coming into the house, and someone was also ascending the stairway from the basement, up which he himself had come. He realized that he must not be discovered here in the house, among all these beautiful and costly things. To have come to the.
