Coming Through the Rye by Grace Livingston Hill Page B

good judgment told her was a lie, trying to believe a thing because she wanted it to be true. She had to clear away these doubts that were in her own heart before she could pray to be heard. She had always believed in prayer from her childhood but never practiced it very continuously. Still, she had prayed in faith many times and received a comfortable feeling in return that now all would be well because she had given it into the hands of God. But this time it was different. It was as if her prayers reached no higher than the ceiling and then fell in broken fragments around her feet. It seemed that if it were possible to see the invisible, she would be able to see her vain words lying in useless unaccepted heaps around the room.
    Romayne found a light in the lower hall and went on past the arched doorway toward the back of the hall to the cellar door. She was going down to investigate for herself without any curious eyes upon her.
    She had opened the door and snapped on the cellar light when she was suddenly confronted by a blinking officer who had evidently been dozing in the front room.
    â€œIs there anything I can get for you, miss?” he asked courteously.
    â€œNo, thank you,” she said in a small tired voice. “I was only going down to the cellar.”
    â€œCertainly,” he said as if going down to the cellar in the middle of the night were quite a common occurrence. “I will go with you.”
    â€œOh, it isn’t necessary,” said Romayne, looking as if she were going to cry again. “I’m not afraid.”
    â€œI’d better go,” said the man.
    Then she remembered that they were all under surveillance.
    â€œVery well,” she said coldly. “I’m only going down to look at something. In the morning I’m going to see someone and explain all this. I’m sure my father knew nothing whatever about it. I’m quite sure someone else has been carrying on all this, because my father was in the
oil
business. Why, I’ve helped him send out his circulars! My father almost never came down to the cellar.”
    â€œYes?” said the officer as if he were trying to be kind to her. There was something condescending in his tone that offended her. She walked on down the stairs determinedly and began her inspection of their cellar. She went over to the big box that Evan Sherwood had shown her earlier in the evening and examined it carefully.
    She saw now what she had not noticed the first time, that the box had been made in compartments, and evidently there had been a shelf or top layer separated from the rest. Perhaps this was the way they had deceived her father to get their wares into the next house. They might have packed the upper compartment with specimens of ore and then employed the man to open the box. She felt sure her father had not remained in the cellar long enough to have unpacked the whole box. He probably merely inspected the top of the box and ordered the things brought upstairs, and very likely the man reported that the rest was all alike.
    She turned from the box with a sigh of real relief and with more assurance than she had felt since she had entered the house the evening before. She began to investigate the remainder of the cellar. If she could just prove that her father had known nothing about it, that he had been duped, it would make all the difference in the world. But she would have to prove it to herself. If only she might go about alone without an officer at her elbow!
    The back of the cellar was dark, and she peered into the shadows furtively, wondering if there was anything more she had not seen. But the officer, noticing her glance, stepped to the wall and touched a button under the edge of the stairs that she did not know existed, flooding the back of the cellar with light, and revealing a door that she had never noticed before and that apparently led into a vegetable store closet, at least that would be the natural conclusion