The Hollow of Her Hand by McCutcheon, George Barr, 1866-1928

"Oh, it--it must be a dream!" cried Hetty Castleton, her eyes swimming. "I can't believe--" Suddenly she caught herself up, and tried to smile. "I don't see why you do this for me. I do not deserve--"

"You have done me a service," said Mrs. Wrandall, her manner so peculiar that the girl again assumed the stare of perplexity and wonder that had been paramount since their meeting: as if she were on the verge of grasping a great truth.

"What CAN you mean?"

Sara laid her hands on the girl's shoulders and looked steadily into the puzzled eyes for a moment before speaking.

"My girl," she said, ever so gently, "I shall not ask what your life has been; I do not care. I shall not ask for references. You are alone in the world and you need a friend. I too am alone. If you will come to me I will do everything in my power to make you comfortable and--contented. Perhaps it will be impossible to make you happy. I promise faithfully to help you, to shield you, to repay you for the thing you have done for me. You could not have fallen into gentler hands than mine will prove to be. That much I swear to you on my soul, which is sacred. I bear you no ill-will. I have nothing to avenge."

Hetty drew back, completely mystified.

"Who are you?" she murmured, still staring.

"I am Challis Wrandall's wife."

CHAPTER IV

WHILE THE MOB WAITED

The next day but one, in the huge old-fashioned mansion of the Wrandalls in lower Fifth Avenue, in the drawing-room directly beneath the chamber in which Challis was born, the impressive but grimly conventional funeral services were held.

Contrasting sharply with the sombre, absolutely correct atmosphere of the gloomy interior was the exterior display of joyous curiosity that must have jarred severely on the high-bred sensibilities of the chief mourners, not to speak of the invited guests who had been obliged to pass between rows of gaping bystanders in order to reach the portals of the house of grief, and who must have reckoned with extreme distaste the cost of subsequent departure. A dozen raucous-voiced policemen were employed to keep back the hundreds that thronged the sidewalk and blocked the street. Curiosity was rampant. Ever since the moment that the body of Challis Wrandall was carried into the house of his father, a motley, varying crowd of people shifted restlessly in front of the mansion, filled with gruesome interest in the absolutely unseen, animated by the sly hope that something sensational might happen if they waited long enough.