Morning, and a faint hope! The story was not finished, and, though I thought I could tell the rest myself, the woman was so absorbed in the delightful contemplation of her triumph and her cleverness, that I knew she would go on to the end. The wild, resurgent hope deafened me for a few minutes to her low murmur of narration. It had come to me like a flash that, with my legs unbound, I might be able to knock over the candle, put it out, get to my feet in one lightning spring, and make a dash for the hole in the closet. Would there not be a chance of my reaching it alive? Would not the noise of my flight, in spite of my stocking feet and the handkerchief over my mouth, be enough to attract the attention even of a sleeping house, much more certainly, of an awakened and suspicious one? It was, of course a desperate hope, but I could not help but entertain it. If I could force myself to wait till morning had surely come, till there was the stir and murmur of awakening life, surely--oh, dear God!--surely, there might be one little hope of life. I was young and strong and active. I must not die here in this horrible wall. I must not bear the infamy of this woman's guilt. I must not lie dead and unspeakably defiled in the sight of the man I loved.
Paul Dabney's face, haggard, wistful, appeared before me, and my whole heart cried out to its gray and doubting eyes for help, for pity, for belief.
Unluckily, the woman, sensitive as a cat, had become aware of the changed current of my thought, of the changed direction of my look. She, too, glanced at the candle and gave a little exclamation of dismay that stabbed the silence like a suddenly bared knife.
“Bah!” she said, “it must be daylight, and I have n't half confessed myself. Pests on the time! We've been here four or five hours. Are you cramped?”
I was insufferably cramped. The pain of my arms and shoulders, the cutting of the twine about my wrists, were torment. I was very thirsty, too. But nothing was so cruel as the sinking of my heart which her words caused me.
“I suppose I shall have to cut it short,” she said. “After all, you must know it almost as well as I do, especially since you had the nerve to play my part with Maida. The worst trick you put over on me was when you pulled Dabney out of the mud--curse the mud, anyway; if it had been a real quicksand he'd have been done for; but his getting back alive that night certainly crossed me, and, as for Maida, she was in a devil's rage. She could n't understand how he'd escaped. She cursed, and raved, and threatened even me. It was all that Jaffrey and I could do to hold her; she was for giving up the whole game and making a getaway before it was too late. As a matter of fact, it was already too late for any one but me. Hovey had you all just where he wanted you. At any instant he could bag you all. I had known that for some time. If it had n't been for your _beaux yeux_, Janice, and a little bit, perhaps, because of my own pretty ways, all of you would be jailed by now. After you'd rescued your Dabney, I had to play a bold, prompt game. I knew that the spell could n't hold much longer. I could see by the strained look on that boy's face that he was at the snapping point. I told Maida to search the bookcase that night. Action of some kind was necessary to keep her in hand. I did n't know that you had already taken away the paper. Gast had told me about the paper when I was in New York, and the Baron had hinted at its possible hiding-place. He came down here that day to tell me--I'd bribed him for all I was worth. He was going to leave word with Maida. Then, of course, he saw you and the poor fool thought I was playing housekeeper, under 'Dabney's' very nose.