“Stop!” she whispered.
Julia stood listening, and with her eyes strained towards where a light shone beneath the ill-fitting study-door from which, in the stillness, the heavy stertorous breathing of Hallam could be heard. She could hear, too, the faint rustle of Mrs Hallam’s dress as she paced along the hall; and as Julia gazed in the direction she had taken, the light that streamed from beneath, and some faint rays from the side, showed indistinctly a misty figure which sank down on its knees and remained for a few moments.
The silence was awful to the trembling girl, who could not repress a faint cry as she heard a loud cough coming from beyond the dining-room.
But she, too, drew her breath hard, and set her teeth as if the nearness of her enemy provoked her to desperate resistance, and she stood waiting there firmly, but wondering the while whether they would be able to escape or be stopped in the act of flight by Crellock, whom she knew to be watching there.
She dare not call, though she felt that her mother was again overcome by the terrors of the step they had resolved to take, and the moments seemed interminable before there was a change in the light beneath the door, and a faint rustle mingled with the heavy breathing. Then her hand was clasped by one like ice in its coldness, and, as if repeating the prayer she had been uttering, Julia heard her mother say in a faint whisper:
“It is for her sake—for hers alone.”
Julia drew her into the drawing-room as they had planned, and closed the door. Then Mrs Hallam seemed to breathe more freely.
“The weakness has passed,” she said softly. “We must lose no time.”
They crossed the room carefully to where a dim light showed the French window to be, and Mrs Hallam laid her hand upon it firmly, and turned the fastening after slipping the bolt.
“Keep a good heart, my darling,” she said. “You are not afraid?”