The Bozeman courier. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1919-1954, 1922-07-12

80 OAAC1 a ~ AAcA 0pliOl-
steered in leather win a high and
solid back, and she moved it. a trifle
50 that her presence in its depths
could not be seen from Uile doorway
by a person entering the room.
Then she hid herself in it and
waited.
During many minutes she sat with
her eyes wide open, staring slanting-
wise through the open window where
tho f,lmy lace draperies swelled and
subsidized and swelied again in the
zephyrlike night breeze.
When they bulged into the room,
prosse1 apart momentarily by the
air. he could see-between
the iron spindies of the balcony rail
the S"ne big balsam tree out of the
shadow # = 1 Belknap had made
Ais succen .carance when he had
startled her so greatly, earlier in the
highland she fell again into going
over the details of the evening and
night, bit by bit, item by item.
Thus the sleep that would not be
wooed when she had n to bed
crept stealthily and silently upon her
in the chair beside the open window.
and, without realizing it, she drowsed
and drifted into security.
The clicking of a latch startled her
into wakefulness- A sharper draft
of air bulged the ~draperies into the
room.
Katherine was aware that the door
opened, and was closed again, al
though she heard no further sound;
but she was certain that the senor-
tia had returned and was standing
somewhere between her and the closed
door, unconscious of her presence.
unwise to the fact that she was not
alone.
It was Katherine's impulse to
speak, but she did not. She sat very
still and waited, wishing fervently
that she could see; she was, at the
moment, sorry that she had so placed
the chair that her own vision of the
interior of the room was minimized
to next to nothing.
She could hear stealtbv ootfalls.
presently, as the person behind hst
crossed the floor.
Absolute silence followed, and con-
tlnued so long a time that Katherine
found it difficult to restrain her i'm
pulse to move ever so little so that
she might turn her head enough to
discover what was going on; yet she
feared to do so, knowing that the
slightest of sounds would betray
her presence in the chair.
Then she remembered that she was
clad only in her night dress and the
fllmy negligee that covered it; and
therefore there was nothing about
her apparel that would rustic if she
moved; the soft material Of her wrap
per would slip noiselessly over the
leather covering of the chair.
After another moment q single
light was switched on behind her, and
by the dim glow of it Katherine
knew 1t to be the green-shaded desk
light IN a far corner of the room;
but the silence remained unbroken.
Katherine could bear it no longer
and, anyway, since she had gone TO
that room for the express purpose of
having an understanding with the
senorita, why delay? So she moved
ever SO little, and turned her head,
and fortunately, made not a sound in
doing so.
What she discovered terrified her.
For the first time in her life that
she could recall she was actually
afraid-really scared-panic-stricNen
The person who had entered the
room, who had so silently crossed it,
at that very instant moving slowly
across the floor toward the very chair
upon which she was seated, vas not
the ~senorita.
1t was a man, and the nan w-s
Conrad Belknap.
Katherine saw, with that quick ca
pacity for comprehension w1icn one
experiences in vital moments, that he
held in one hand an opened en-
velope and an unfolded sheet of note
paper that he had evidently taken
from it-a letter, apparently, that he
had been reading by the aid of the
desk light; a fact which would ac-
count for that enduring silence of his
after he had entered the room and
crossed it to the desk.
1t was, without a doubt, a letter
of the senorita's that she had left
! upon her desk. Katherine saw that
the envelope had been sealed with
wax, and had been ruthlessly broken
open.
The green shade over the desk
light was thick and heavy, and there
was not sufficient illumination fol
Katherine to see the mans face
plainly, yet she did discern enough
to know that he was in a rage;
silent, impotent, helpless rage abou'
something that was, for the moment
beyond his control.
She had no time in which to de
termine what to do; there was moth
ing that she could DO.
Belknap had not seen her; sh
knew that. He was not aware of he
presence in the room, but he was ap
preaching her swiftly, silently, impla
cably; evidently seeking the chair a
she had sought it earlier, and sh
knew that in just another instant sh
would have to rise in her place an
~orfront him.
In the Sencrita's Room.
If Conrad Belknap had taken Oh
more step ne must have seer her.
He did not take it. There was
sharp click against the knob at th
and at the sound of it he turned
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