CHAPTER X
ANDY'S DEATH WARRANT
IN her room, Anne Withero was reading. She had always disliked that room, for her tastes were by no means idle standards but tyrants, and the flowered wall paper of that old-fashioned place and the vivid red of the carpet were a torture to her eyes. The room had not changed overnight, yet now she preferred it to any other place in the house. And there was only one possible explanation. Once, twice, and again she got up from her chair to examine the sill of her window. On it there was a dotted scratch in the paint, such a scar as the sharp rowel of a spur might make. And on the slant roof of the veranda below her there was a broken shingle on which she could make out—or perhaps this was imagination—the print of a heel.
At any rate, the window sill fascinated her.
After that forced and early rising the rest of the house had remained awake, but Anne Withero was gifted with an exceptionally strong set of nerves. She had gone back to bed and fallen promptly into a pleasant sleep. And when she wakened all that happened in the night was filmed over and had become dreamlike.
No one disturbed her rest; but when she went down to a late breakfast she found Charles Merchant lingering in the room. He had questioned her closely, and after a moment of thought she told him exactly what had happened, because she was perfectly aware that he would not believe a word of it. And she was right. He had
