To while away the tedious hours she had read until her eyes filmed and her brain reeled. And then she had been compelled to lay aside her book, and sink back in her resting chair.
In the excited state of her nervous system she could not sleep, for she was listening through the dead stillness of deep night, hoping to hear the sound of the horse’s feet, that was always the warning of her husband’s approach.
And yet she had no means of knowing whether he would return that night or not.
As she sat there waiting and listening, she could but remember the possible dangers of her position.
The house contained much of the sort of property that tempt burglars—property at once very valuable and very portable—such as silver and gold plate, jewels and money.
She had been living in it now some months, and secludedly as she lived, her abode there, and the richness and defencelessness of the premises might well have come to the knowledge of the professional burglars, whose acuteness in discovering such rich mines of unprotected treasure is much finer than that of the detectives who are always supposed to be on their track.
How easy—how perfectly easy it would be, she thought, for even one resolute villain to break through those unprotected glass windows, and murder her, and rob the house, in safety and at leisure.
The cottage was half a mile from any other dwelling house, and a quarter of a mile from any public road. The wildest shriek that might ever rise from dying victim in its rooms, could never be heard by human ears without.
As Drusilla remembered these circumstances her very soul grew sick with terror. And was it any wonder?
She was a young, delicate, impressible woman. And on this dark night, and in this isolated house she was quite alone. Her man-servant was in his loft over the stables, where he slept, with pistols by his side, to guard the valuable horses. And her maid-servant was in her attic over the kitchen, in a distant part of the dwelling.