Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/72

62 sion of a twelve-inch hack-saw blade of the finest tempered steel. It was so finely tempered that back in my room I was able to coil it up like a watch-spring, and wire it together with a couple of hairpins. Then I melted down about half of my maple-sugar over an alcohol-lamp and poured it into a round soap-dish. Before it hardened I dropped the coiled-up saw into the center of it. In half an hour, when I turned it out it looked nothing more than a cake of maple-sugar. Then I tied it up carefully, and bribed one of the day-scholars to mail it to Copperhead Kate for me, with a little unsigned note of instruction inside.

It was two weeks later that Copperhead Kate reappeared in the bald, white-walled, curtainless reception room of the Ursuline academy. She was still in black, but this time her veil was of heavy crape.

"Can you get rid of this woman?" she said to me between her teeth, for Sister Angelica had accompanied me to that white-walled room with its six pictures of six different Saints.

Sister Angelica, I think, read my face only too well as I asked for a talk with my caller on family affairs. But she went from the room without a word.