“No, not that; if there’s anything in the morgue worth your attention, I’ll be sure to notice it.” “So will I,” said Dorothy. “Come on, Ruth, let’s look.” Ruth had been wondering whether Pendragon would go out with them and how she could avoid his going to the house on Gramercy Square, but evidently he was as informal as a student, for he only nodded a careless farewell and strolled off while they went in search of the picture. CHAPTER VI Ruth entered the house with her own key, which she had taken, not wanting to keep George waiting up to open the door for her. The house was quite silent and dark, save for one dim light burning in the hall, and this light seemed to illumine a thick blue haze or smoke that floated out enveloping her as she paused on the threshold. At the same moment she was conscious of an almost overpowering odour of incense, something that Gloria never used, she knew. She stood a moment peering through the blue haze until she made out a figure crouching on the stairs, not George as she at first supposed, but Amy, who seldom showed herself in the front of the house. She was huddled up, with clasped arms, weaving to and fro and moaning inarticulate prayers, while her eyes rolled wildly about in her head. “Amy, what’s wrong? Are you ill?” Amy paused in her weaving and moaning to shake her head negatively. “Then what’s wrong? Is Miss Mayfield ill?” Again the negative shake. “I’se waitin’ up for yo’, Mis’ Ruth. I want you to let me sleep upstairs with you all tonight. There’s a couch in the room what you all paint. I kin use that,—please, Mis’ Ruth, I’se a dead woman ef you says no.” “What nonsense!” said Ruth, trying to speak sharply and at the same time in a low tone. Amy, for all her agitation, kept her voice almost a whisper and kept turning her head over her shoulder as if she feared that some one was coming up behind her. “Why do you want to sleep in my studio? Aren’t you comfortable downstairs? If you’re ill I’ll send for a doctor. You’ll have to give me some reason.” She saw that the negro woman’s distress was very real, however foolish, and laid her hand on her trembling shoulder. “Doan ask me no questions now—jes let me come,” she said rising as if she would accompany Ruth upstairs against her will, and still looking over her shoulder. “I can’t let you come unless you tell me why,” said Ruth, her voice growing louder in spite of her efforts to keep it low. The negress laid a warning finger on her lips and shot a look of such terror over her shoulder that Ruth felt a sympathetic thrill of horror down her own spine and peered into the blackness beyond the stairway, half expecting to see some apparition there. Then struggling as much to control her own nerves as those of the servant, she put both hands on Amy’s shoulders and forced her down on the stairway again.