“Is that you, Mis. Vernon?”
Then came a shriek. She had evidently encountered the burglar.
“Oh, Philip, what shall we do?” said Ethel. “Don’t you think it will be safe to go and tell the burglar to go away? Minerva will surely go into hysterics and leave in the morning.”
“She’s gone there now. Hear her!”
The noise occasioned by the advent of the bat was as nothing compared to the din that Minerva let out upon the midnight air.
And now we heard a man’s voice, the voice of the burglar.
“Be quiet. I’m not going to hurt you. I made a mistake in the house.”
Made a mistake in the house and the next one half a mile away!
“Philip, if he were a dangerous burglar he would have shot her by this. Go and speak to him and tell him to go away.”
It was a risky proceeding, but after all we had gone through I was determined to keep Minerva with us at any risk, so pulling a dressing gown over my pajamas and leaping into my slippers, I went down stairs choking down my rising heart.