There was no answer; only a vigorous thrust from the hands placed upon his chest, and he felt that she was trying to open the door, trembling violently the while.
“Katrine,” he whispered, “why do you not trust me? Wake up. There is nothing to fear.”
He tried to clasp her in his arms again, but with a quick movement she eluded him, and as he caught at her again, it seemed as if the great curtain had been thrust into his arms, for he grasped that, and as he flung it away, the door struck him in the face, and then closed, he heard it locked, and the key withdrawn.
Then he stood listening, for the window rattled again, and he wondered that the noise he had made in his slight struggle with Katrine had not been heard by whoever was on the sill.
There was a bell somewhere in the room; but if he rang, and roused up the butler, the man would be horrified at hearing his old master’s bedroom bell ringing in the dead of the night.
Even if that had not been the case, what excuse could he make? And could he explain his position to Mr Girtle without making him the confidant of all that had passed? And how could he relate to any one that Katrine had been wandering about the house in the middle of the night? What would Mr Girtle say? Would he think it was somnambulism?
No; he could not ring. It was impossible; and all the while there was that strange noise outside, muffled by the curtain.
He walked cautiously through the intense darkness towards the window, till he could touch the curtain, and then, passing to the left, he softly drew it a little inward, and looked out.
It was almost as dark out there as in; but there was a faint glow from the lamps beyond the tall houses that closed in the back, and against this he could dimly see the figure of a man, standing on the sill, while, more indistinctly and quite low down, there were the heads and shoulders of two more.
It seemed to him that the man standing on the sill was trying to pass some instrument through between the two sashes, so as to force back the window-catch.