A chill douche of apprehension seemed to restore Frances to her senses. She ran across the room and groped feverishly along the wall for the electric-light button. She could find none. But on the chiffonier was a drop-globe, and with one quick turn of the wrist the room was flooded with tinted light.
The prisoner first verified her fears; there was no possible avenue of escape by way of the windows. These, she saw at once, were out of the question.
So she stopped in front of the mirror, thinking quickly and lucidly; and for the second time that night she decided to let down her hair. She could twist the bank-notes up into a little rope, and pin her thick braids closely over them, and no one might think to search for them there. It was a slender thread, but on that thread still hung her only hope.
She tore open her dress and flung the cover from the precious glove-box, scattering the gloves about in her feverish search.
The box held nothing. The money was not there. It had been taken and hidden elsewhere. And she might never have known, until it was too late!
Then methodically and more coolly she made a second search throughout the now lighted room. But nowhere could she find the package she needed. And, after all it was too late! And in a sort of tidal wave of deluging apprehension, she suddenly understood what life from that hour forward was worth to her.
She set to work to rearrange the chiffonier, inappositely and vacuously. She even did what she could to put the room once more in order. This accomplished, she took up her hot-water bottle, and still told herself that she must not give up. Then she seated herself in a little white-and-gold rocker, and waited, quietly blazing out through her jungle of danger each different narrow avenue of expediency.
“Poor Jim!” she murmured, under her breath, with one dry sob.
The hum of voices came to her from the hallway—the servants, obviously, had been awakened. She could hear the footsteps come to a stop without, and the shuffling of slippered feet on the hardwood floor. Then came the drone of excited whisperings, the creak and jar of the doors opening and closing.
Then, remote and muffled and far-away, sounded the sharp ringing of a bell. Somebody out in the hallway gasped a relieved, “Thank heaven!”