Shaking with cold and fear, Gus could hardly keep himself from falling from the roof. What should he do? He must get away somehow—but how? Crouching low, and supporting himself on his hands, he looked over the edge of the gutter. Immediately below was a small square window. Having first wrung all the water he could from his ragged clothes, and shaken himself thoroughly, Gus tightly clutched the gutter and swung himself off the roof, and after hanging perilously for a moment or two, managed to get his feet planted on the narrow window-sill below. Happily the window was open an inch or two at the bottom. Steadying himself against the wall with one hand, Gus, in extreme peril of falling headlong, pushed up the lower window-sash with the other.
The next moment, feet foremost, he fell rather than climbed through the window. A roll of carpet broke his fall, and gathering himself up, he found he was in a small room full of boxes and other lumber. He made some noise as he tumbled over these on his way to the door, but the sound was lost in the clamour of the alarm bell, which Martha was now pulling lustily.
Gus was at a loss what to do. If the house were immediately searched, there was little hope that he could escape detection, and though he had previously thought it would be easy to tell everything to Miss Edith, he had now a horror of being dragged forth before all the household, and branded as a young housebreaker. If only he could find his way back to the bath-room window, and descend by the ladder!
Opening the door of the lumber-room as gently as possible, he stole into the passage. There was no one about, for Miss Durrant had forbidden any one to go through the house at present, and she and Edith had returned to the dining-room. Cook was keeping watch at her bedroom window, and Martha was at the top of the attic stairs pulling the bell.
Swiftly and noiselessly the boy glided along the passage, ascended a short flight of stairs, and found himself again in the corridor where was the bath-room. But though the window stood open, the ladder was gone. Gus leaned out, but could see nothing in the darkness. He knew that the window was too high above the ground for him to venture a leap.
Clearly, Lucas and his son had decamped and left him to his fate. Gus closed the window, and turned away in despair. What should he do?
Just then the sudden opening of a door, a blast of cold air through the house, and the sound of excited voices below, assured Gus that Mr. Thornton's valet had arrived, and was receiving a warm welcome from the unprotected females. No time was to be lost. Gus fled desperately along the corridor.
The warm glow from the fire-lit bedroom seemed to invite him. Wet and shivering, Gus ran instinctively to the glowing hearth, and for a few moments forgot his embarrassing position in the delight of warming himself. Then he became aware of steps and voices on the stairs. A procession was approaching armed with fireirons, and headed by Mr. Thornton's valet, flourishing the kitchen poker.
"I must beg you to search thoroughly every room," Miss Durrant was saying. "It is not that I am nervous, but I think it only right to satisfy ourselves that there is no man concealed upon the premises."