After a brief pause, again, “Danny.”
But there was no answer, and suddenly it seemed to her that everything was very, very quiet. Startled, she ran up the tower stairs calling in frightened tones, “Danny, oh, Danny! Answer me!”
Not, however, until she had reached the top step did she get her answer. Then the tower room door was flung back and by the dull glow of a candle Mary Louise could see the dim outline of a man. A frightened shriek rose to her lips but before it could be uttered, the man had leaped forward and with strength born of desperation, had lifted her bodily and carried her into the room pushing shut the door after him.
Gasping, Mary Louise sank onto the wicker couch which she had bought for Danny, to make his room more cheery. Even in her great fear, a sense of gratitude came to her that it was this stranger and not Danny Dexter who had stolen her car. And thinking so, some of the fear vanished and she dared glance up at the man.
His was not at all a criminal type of face. The mouth and the lines about the mouth were very weak, but the eyes were kindly, and just now, as she met their gaze, they seemed filled with apology and distress. His tone, however, was firm and decided as he turned to Mary Louise.
“Keep absolutely quiet,” he commanded crisply, “and no harm will come to you. But if you try to call out—”
Here he gave his shoulders a shrug and, with a bitter laugh, added: “I’m pretty desperate. I’ve got to get away, and if you make a sound, I may have to tie you up.”
Mary Louise most decidedly did not want to be tied up. Words choked right in her throat but in some way she managed to convey the idea to this waiting man that she was and always would be more quiet than the quietest mouse. She felt she never, never could speak a word again, and she was trembling as if from cold in the dead of winter.
When the man was reassured, he returned to the task from which he had evidently been interrupted. This seemed to be page after page of accounts, and he was going over them with infinite care. As he leaned close under the candle flame, Mary Louise could see that he was a man very far from young. His hair was quite gray and the lines upon his face were heavy. As he turned the last leaf of the accounts, a deep sadness was on his face, which, when he had slipped the package into an envelope and addressed it, changed into as great a tenderness as Mary Louise had ever seen. Then and there all fear dropped from her and she wished she could aid this old man who so surely needed help.
Her presence had evidently been forgotten for the moment, but now the man straightened up with a start as the town clock boomed midnight.