Kitty did manage to steer herself now clear of the various articles of furniture in her mistress’s room, and to pass through the door that led to her own, and in another moment she was again fast asleep.
‘Dear me,’ said the lady, ‘I do feel nervous to-night, to be sure, and I don’t know why.’
Ting—ting—ting! went the little bell of her repeater watch as she pressed the spring of it.
‘Three o’clock,’ she said. ‘Well, I’d better try to go to sleep, I suppose, while I can.’
She did not utter another word, and in a few moments the most deathlike silence was in the room again.
Blodget put his hand in the little circular hole in the door, and drew up the bolt once more.
‘Curses upon all this delay,’ he said to himself, ‘we shall have the daylight upon us soon.’
This was indeed so, as another hour would without doubt bring the dawn, and then the situation of Blodget and his companions in iniquity would be rather perilous.
There were many other circumstances which rendered it desirable to be quick about the affair.
In the first place the collision with the watch had no doubt been, by that time, communicated, and no doubt the police were active.