“What an old goose you are!” Her voice was as pleased and affectionate as any woman’s might have been who had won her husband’s approbation by some wifely act.
“Come on now! Let’s get out. We have what we came for and I am eager to get busy on that old devil O’Gorman’s code.”
They switched off the light and locked the door carefully. Josie scuttled from under her bed and ran to the front window. Peeping down into the faintly lighted street she saw the Markles walking off affectionately, arm in arm.
“And poor man, he is going to master Father’s code so he can read Francis Thompson’s ‘The Hound of Heaven,’” and Josie allowed herself a good laugh.
The notes Mr. Markle had so carefully carried off were nothing more than Josie’s lessons she had written out when her father was teaching her the code.
“Maybe it will do them some good,” said the girl with a feeling akin to sympathy in her heart. “I feel kind of sorry for the poor wretches. Father said he always felt sorry for criminals.”
As the girl undressed she recited “The Hound of Heaven.”
“I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;