"Oh, you are _too_ particular! What earthly harm can it do? Here! Take this one and I'll carry the other. This must have been a guest-room, and no one was occupying it when--it all happened. Let's look in the one across the hall." This one also proved precisely similar, bed untouched and furniture undisturbed. Another, close at hand, had the same appearance. They next ventured down a narrower hall, over what was evidently the kitchen wing. On each side were bedrooms, four in all, with sparse, plain furnishings and cot-beds. Each room presented a tumbled, unkempt appearance. "I guess these must have been the servants' rooms," remarked Cynthia. "That's the first right guess you've made!" retorted Joyce, good-naturedly, as she glanced about. "And they all left in a hurry, too, judging from the way things are strewn about. I wonder--" "What?" cried Cynthia, impatient at the long pause. "Oh, nothing much! I just wonder whether they went off of their own accord, or were dismissed. I can't tell. But one thing I can guess pretty plainly--they went right after the dinner-party and didn't stay over another night. 'Cause why? Most of their beds are made, and they left everything in a muss down-stairs. But come along. This isn't particularly interesting. I want to get to the other end of the hall. Something different's over there!" They turned and retraced their steps, emerging from the servants' quarters and passing again the rooms they had already examined. On the other side of the main hall they entered an apartment that was not a bedroom, but appeared to have been used as a sitting-room and for sewing. An old-fashioned sewing-table stood near one window. Two chairs and another table were heaped with material and with garments in various stages of completion. An open work-box held dust-covered spools. But still there was nothing special in the room to challenge interest, and Joyce pulled her companion across the hall toward another partially open door. They had scarcely been in it long enough to illuminate it with the pale flames of their candles, before they realized that they were very near the heart of the mystery. It was another bedroom, the largest so far, and its aspect was very different from that of the others. The high four-poster was tossed and tumbled, not, however, as if by a night's sleep, but more as if some one had lain upon it just as it was, twisting and turning restlessly. Two trunks stood on the floor, open and partially packed. One seemed to contain household linen, once fine and dainty and white, now yellowed and covered with the dust of years. The other brimmed with clothing, a woman's, all frills and laces and silks; and a great hoop-skirt, collapsed, lay on the floor alongside. Neither of the girls could, for the moment, guess what it was, this queer arrangement of wires and tape. But Joyce went over and picked it up, when it fell into shape as she held it at arm's-length. Then they knew.