The incident of the farmer's curiosity had unnerved him, too. He put back over his face one of the white handkerchiefs that he had taken off when he began the flight.
"There's no more 'pity-the-poor-girl' stuff in this," he said gruffly to Pauline. "If you don't keep quiet I'll kill you. I mean what I say."
He still had the instinctive crook sense to conceal his natural voice. Hicks was afraid, but as mile after mile fell behind them and the westerning sun gave promise of the early shelter of dark, he began to gain confidence. He mumbled to himself reminiscently:
"The old Grigsby house, eh? Nobody but—" he checked himself.
"Nobody but somebody would thought've that."
The "old Grigsby house," in front of which the runabout came to a stop after many miles of travel, was set back from the road about three hundred yards. In front of it and on either side, the trees had been cut away, but a tangle of riotous shrubbery lined the path to the door. Behind the house the trees had been left untouched, and now in its tottering condition the venerable building literally rested on two of the great elms, like an old man on crutches.
The windows were few and shuttered. The black steel blinds were dead as the eyes of a skull. The steel was not rusted and only a little weather-stained.
There were no steps to the door. It opened on the ground level, with a cracked board serving as both porch and foot mat. The signs of attempted preservation were what gave the place its ominous air. There was a menace in the steel shutters of the old Grigsby house, and in the fact that the path to the door was kept clear.
Up this path Hicks carried Pauline. Before he lifted her in his arms he tested her bonds. He did not know that Pauline was too terrified to conceive the simplest plan of action. Compared with the fear that possessed her now the torturing suspense of the balloon flight seemed like peace and safety.
Hicks held her with one arm while with the other he unlocked the low door. Swinging heavy on strong hinges, it opened into a narrow hall, mildewed with the dampness of decay, the dust of disuse. He carried Pauline up the stairs, which groaned and bent under his steps and pushed open a door. There was a broken chair, a table, a cot, a washstand, with pitcher and bowl, and a small oil lamp set in a bracket on the wail.
Hicks laid Pauline on the cot, and lighted the lamp, using the same match for a cigarette. He seemed spurred by a desire to get away as if the tottering, grimy halls held memories too grim for even his hardened soul. After testing the shutters of the window, which were locked on the outside, he stepped back to the cot and cut Pauline's bonds, and removed the bandage from her lips. As she fell back in a half swoon he hurried through the door, closed and locked it and went down the stairs.