She was tempted to run up the lane and tap at the door. But this afternoon was pledged to Mr. Langley and his girl-wife, and Anna regretfully left the lane behind her. She opened the parsonage gate softly. If she could elude Bell the way was clear, for the front door stood open, and of course the screen door wouldn’t be fastened. Creeping up the walk, she tried it gently. It did not yield. Peeping in, she could just make out that it was hooked. As she stood irresolute, she noticed a loose place where the wire netting was tacked to the wooden frame of door. It was too late for June-bugs, but the season was still like summer and if there were any chance, moth millers would fly in by the score as soon as the lamps were lighted and commit suicide in their harrowing way. Poor things! It seemed wicked to entice them to destruction. But there was no other way. Boldly the girl poked her finger through the aperture, tearing the netting ruthlessly until she could reach the hook and raise it. Then, withdrawing her scratched and bleeding hand, she opened the door softly and stole in, only to be immediately seized and oppressed by a sensation of guilt and even of fright. Pausing only a moment, however, she made her way noiselessly down the passage to the door of the room she knew to be that of the minister’s wife. It was ajar and she knocked timidly. Absolute silence save for the loud ticking of the clock and the yet louder beating of her heart. Screwing her courage, Anna knocked again. “Bell?” called out a strange, hoarse voice that accorded ill with the vision of the girl-wife. “No’m. It’s me--Anna. It’s the other Miller girl--Rusty’s sister, you know,” murmured Anna faintly. “Please may I come in? I want to--tell you something.” Without waiting for an answer, she pushed the door wide and entered a large, bare, gloomy looking chamber, darkened and musty-smelling though one window was open a few inches. For a minute she stood motionless, unable to make out anything clearly in the dimness. Then, as suddenly as if a blind had been raised or a match struck she saw the dark figure of the minister’s wife dimly silhouetted against the dun background. Mrs. Langley--if indeed it were Mrs. Langley?--had raised herself from the cushions of a padded arm chair and was staring at the intruder in mingled amazement and horror. And the girl, her heart in her mouth, stood as if transfixed and stared back. It was as if she had heard a tremendous explosion or witnessed a silent one (as one does in a dream) and found herself standing in the midst of a mass of wreckage--which might have been the shattered fragments of the bottle of cologne-water with which she had in fancy bathed the white brow of the pale, romantic invalid she had pictured. [Illustration: “Please, may I come in? I want to--tell you something.”]