Throwing wide the door, Kitty stepped outside. In the gathering darkness no one was visible. She paused in thought, her troubled eyes trying to pierce the gloom of the desolate garden and the empty pathway circling the mansion. The woman's voice still echoed in her ears--where, where had she heard its haunting quality before? CHAPTER XIV AND CORRUPTION Kitty paused before her bureau and inspected herself in the mirror. It had been a relief to change from her street clothes to a dressing gown. She had spent nearly an hour lying on the couch in her bedroom trying to piece together the puzzling events of the afternoon. On re�ntering the house she had gone at once to the servants' quarters; from there she had searched every room, even to the attic. To all appearances Oscar was not in the house. She had then waited in the library, hoping to catch him on his entrance, but evidently he had accompanied the unknown woman away from the house. Kitty struck her hands together in impotent wrath at the thought. Why had she not realized immediately that the speakers were outside the house, and not wasted precious minutes trying to light the lamp in the library and thus given them time to slip away unseen! Who was the woman? Vainly, Kitty tried to identify her voice. Strive as she did to recall where she had heard it before, it eluded her memory. Why should any woman bribe old Oscar to steal papers which had belonged to her aunt? With a sigh of utter weariness, Kitty gave up the problem for the moment and continued her dressing. Twenty minutes later, her toilet completed, she stopped before the cheval glass and gave a final pat to her hair. At last, satisfied with her appearance, she hastened into the hall. As she descended the staircase, she heard the rattle of dishes in the dining room and the sound of the dumb-waiter creaking its way upward. With flying footsteps she covered the intervening space and crossed the hall to the pantry. "Oscar!" she called. "I wish to speak to you at once. Come here." But the person who stepped from the dining room into the pantry at her imperious summons was not Oscar. "What yo' want, Miss Kitty?" asked Mandy. "Oscar!" She repeated the old servant's name with ever growing impatience. "I must see him immediately." "Laws, Miss Kitty, Oscar's on his way to Front Royal, Virginia, dis hyar minute," explained Mandy, in no wise hurrying her leisurely speech. "On his way where?" gasped Kitty. "To Front Royal." Mandy lifted her apron and produced from a voluminous pocket a much twisted telegram. "He done got dis hyar message to come at wandst 'cause his brother, the one dat owns a farm five miles from Front Royal, is a dyin'. See what dey done wrote," and she held out the telegram. Kitty read the typed lines with interest before handing the telegram back to Mandy. "Why didn't you tell me of this?" she demanded. "Oscar had no business to leave without first speaking to me."