Produced by Robert Fite, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team, from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions. THE MILL MYSTERY BY ANNA KATHARINE GREEN AUTHOR OF "THE LEAVENWORTH CASE," "A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE," "HAND AND RING," ETC. ETC. CONTENTS CHAPTER I-------THE ALARM II------A FEARFUL QUESTION III-----ADA IV------THE POLLARDS V-------DOUBTS AND QUERIES VI------MRS. POLLARD VII-----ADVANCES VIII----A FLOWER FROM THE POLLARD CONSERVATORY IX------AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY X-------RHODA COLWELL XI------UNDER THE MILL FLOOR XII-----DWIGHT POLLARD XIII----GUY POLLARD XIV-----CORRESPONDENCE XV------A GOSSIP XVI-----THE GREEN ENVELOPE XVII----DAVID BARROWS XVIII---A LAST REQUEST XIX-----A FATAL DELAY XX------THE OLD MILL XXI-----THE VAT XXII----THE CYPHER XXIII---TOO LATE XXIV----CONFRONTED XXV-----THE FINAL BLOW XXVI----A FELINE TOUCH XXVII---REPARATION XXVIII--TWO OR ONE THE MILL MYSTERY * * * * * I. THE ALARM. Life, struck sharp on death, Makes awful lightning. --MRS. BROWNING. I had just come in from the street. I had a letter in my hand. It was for my fellow-lodger, a young girl who taught in the High School, and whom I had persuaded to share my room because of her pretty face and quiet ways. She was not at home, and I flung the letter down on the table, where it fell, address downwards. I thought no more of it; my mind was too full, my heart too heavy with my own trouble. Going to the window, I leaned my cheek against the pane. Oh, the deep sadness of a solitary woman's life! The sense of helplessness that comes upon her when every effort made, every possibility sounded, she realizes that the world has no place for her, and that she must either stoop to ask the assistance of friends or starve! I have no words for the misery I felt, for I am a proud woman, and----But no lifting of the curtain that shrouds my past. It has fallen for ever, and for you and me and the world I am simply Constance Sterling, a young woman of twenty-five, without home, relatives, or means of support, having in her pocket seventy-five cents of change, and in her breast a heart like lead, so utterly had every hope vanished in the day's rush of disappointments. How long I stood with my face to the window I cannot say. With eyes dully fixed upon the blank walls of the cottages opposite, I stood oblivious to all about me till the fading sunlight--or was it some stir in the room behind me?--recalled me to myself, and I turned to find my pretty room-mate staring at me with a troubled look that for a moment made me forget my own sorrows and anxieties. "What is it?" I asked, going towards her with an irresistible impulse of sympathy. "I don't know," she murmured; "a sudden pain here," laying her hand on her heart.