Her ladyship did. It was a white, wan face which looked out at her from between the sheets, so white and so wan that her ladyship was quite startled. "Vi, what do you mean by telling me you're all right? You look like a ghost." "I wish I were." "What does the child mean! Whatever for?" "If I were a ghost I should be dead." "I see, that's it; and a good, sound, healthy idea, especially for a young woman who is scarcely more than a child." Her ladyship, drawing forward a big arm-chair, placed herself, not on the seat, but on the back; her feet she placed on the seat. She was such a small person that if she had occupied the position which people usually do upon a chair, Violet, on her high spring mattress, would have been above the level of her head, and she, for the purpose she had in view, at a disadvantage. Balanced on the top of the back of the chair, she was at least on a level with the girl in the bed. "Vi, I am going to talk to you. I wish I'd been made a foot longer; then I shouldn't be forced to take positions on furniture which people were never meant to take. You're going to tell me all about it. You and I have had our share of troubles in our time, and we've always made a clean breast of them to each other. Now start confessing to me." "It's easy for you to talk." "Of course it is; and it will be easy for you when you've once got going." "You don't understand." "Oh, yes, I do. Sydney Beaton was here last night." "Margaret! How do you know?" The girl threw the bedclothes off for herself, starting up from her pillow. "Has that wretch told you?" Her ladyship regarded the girl attentively; then shook her dainty head. "No one has told me anything. I just guessed, though perhaps you've told me as much as you very well could." "I told you? What do you mean?" "My dear Vi, consider. Could your conduct have been more suggestive? Don't I know you? Aren't I aware that you're the coolest, calmest, most levelheaded of young women? Do you suppose that you acted up to that character last night? My dear Vi, something was wrong with you, so wrong that it had turned the girl I knew into one I didn't. What could it be? We know all about each other that there is to know, so that I knew that there was only one thing which could have on you such a dire effect. How did you know that leather bag was in that chest? Mind you, I'm not asking a question; I'm not trying to force your confidence; I'm only putting it to you if it isn't obvious that there was only one conclusion I could draw?" The girl was sitting up in bed, white-faced, wild-eyed. "Then, now you know why I wished that I was a ghost." Again her ladyship observed her closely, her head a little on one side. "Aren't you--doesn't it occur to you as being just barely possible that you're a goose?" "Why am I a goose?" "May I speak?" "I can't stop you. You've evidently come here for that express purpose."