“But he’s a bad man! Look at him, study him, and you’ll be convinced.”
“O no! he has given me fifty dollars to distribute among the poor. If you were in your senses, my child, you would not call him bad. He is your best earthly friend. You must heed all he says. Agnes will remain to wait on you.”
“Agnes? I’ve no faith in that girl. I fear she is corrupt; that money could tempt her to much that is wrong.”
“What fancies! Poor child! But this is one of the signs of your disease,—this disposition to see enemies in those around you. There! you must let me go. The Lord help and cure you! Farewell!”
Sister Agatha withdrew herself from Clara’s despairing grasp and eager pleadings, and, passing into the sleeping-room, opened the farther door which led into the billiard-room, of the door of which, communicating with the entry, she had the key.
For the moment Hope seemed to vanish from Clara’s heart with the departing form of the Sister; for, simple as she was, she was still a protection against outrage. No shame could come while Sister Agatha was present.
Suddenly the idea occurred to Clara that she had not tested all the possibilities of escape. She ran and tried the doors. They were all locked. We have seen that she had the range of a suite of three large rooms: a front room serving as a parlor and connected by a corridor, having closets and doors at either end, with the sleeping-room looking out on the garden in the rear. This sleeping-room, as you looked from the windows, communicated with the billiard-room on the left, and had one door, also on the left, communicating with the entry on which you came from the stairs. This door was locked on the outside. The parlor also communicated with this entry or hall by a door on the left, locked on the outside. The house was built very much after the style of most modern city houses, so that it is not difficult to form a clear idea of Clara’s position.
Finding the doors were secure against any effort of hers to force them, it occurred to her to throw into the street a letter containing an appeal for succor to the person who might pick it up. She hastily wrote a few lines describing her situation, the room where she was confined, the fraud by which she was held a slave, and giving the name of the street, the number of the house, &c. This she signed Clara A. Berwick. Then rolling it up in a handkerchief with a paper-weight she threw it out of the window far into the street. Ah! It went beyond the opposite sidewalk, over the fence, and into the tall grass of the little ornamented park in front of the house!
She could have wept at the disappointment. Should she write another letter and try again? While she was considering the matter, she saw a well-dressed lady and gentleman promenading. She cried out “Help!” But before she could repeat the cry a hand was put upon her mouth, and the window was shut down.
“No, Missis, can’t ’low dat,” said the chuckling voice of Agnes.