She flashed a quick glance at him . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

"What have I done?"

"You don't know what you are doing."

"Again I question your right."




Contrary Mary


CHAPTER I

_In Which Silken Ladies Ascend One Stairway, and a Lonely Wayfarer
Ascends Another and Comes Face to Face With Old Friends._


The big house, standing on a high hill which overlooked the city,
showed in the moonlight the grotesque outlines of a composite
architecture. Originally it had been a square substantial edifice of
Colonial simplicity. A later and less restrained taste had aimed at a
castellated effect, and certain peaks and turrets had been added.
Three of these turrets were excrescences stuck on, evidently, with an
idea of adornment. The fourth tower, however, rounded out and enlarged
a room on the third floor. This room was one of a suite, and the rooms
were known as the Tower Rooms, and were held by those who had occupied
them to be the most desirable in the barn-like building.