"I know it. Augustus would murder my Antony if he could."
"Then you must not expose him to danger. Come with me."
Mrs. Kenyon advanced, not without some misgivings, since Nancy was unaware of her visit. She could hear the old woman snoring, and was compelled to knock loudly. At last old Nancy heard, and awoke in a great fright.
"Who's there?" she called out, in a quavering voice.
"It's I, Nancy. It's Mrs. Kenyon."
This only seemed to alarm the old woman the more. She was superstitious, like most of her race, and straightway fancied that it was some evil spirit who had assumed Mrs. Kenyon's voice.
"Go away, you debbil!" she answered, in tremulous accents. "I know you. You's an evil sperrit. Go away, and leave old Nancy alone."
Had her situation been less critical, Mrs. Kenyon would have been amused at the old woman's alarm, but in the dead of night, a fugitive from the confinement of a mad-house, she was in no mood for amusement.
"Don't be frightened, Nancy," she said, "I have escaped from the asylum with Cleopatra, and we want you to hide us for to-night. I will give you ten dollars if you will open your door and help us."
Now, avarice was a besetting weakness in old Nancy's character, and though Mrs. Kenyon did not know it, she had unwittinglymade the right appeal to the old woman. Ten dollars was an immense sum to Nancy, who counted her savings by the smallest sums. She drew back the bolt, and opened her door, not wholly without fear that her first suspicions might be correct, and her nocturnal visitors turn out to be emissaries of Satan.