When Diane entered, the fire was crackling cheerfully in the great
fireplace and dancing in bright waves over the china and glass upon a
table by the fire.
The old room, extending the entire width of the lodge and half its
generous depth, was much as it had been in the days of Norman Westfall.
By the western wall stood the old piano. Uncovered rafters and an
inner wall-lining of logs hinted nothing of the substantial plaster
behind it. It was a great room of homely comfort, subtly akin to the
forest beyond its walls.
It was the old fashioned desk in the corner, however, upon which
Diane's thoughtful gaze rested as she ate her supper. The thought of
it had primarily inspired her coming. Surely the old desk, locked this
many a year, might hold some breath of the tragedy that had ghostlike
trailed her footsteps. Ann Westfall had kept the key until her death.
She had bravely put her brother's house in order at his tragic death
and transferred all the papers of value. The key hung now in a sliding
panel beneath the ledge of the desk. The spirit which had kept the old
room unchanged, even to the faded books of Orientalism and the old
pictures strangely mellowed, had led to the hiding of the key away from
vandal fingers.
Once Diane herself had unlocked the desk and peered timidly within.
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