I looked as sympathetic as possible. "It's a very pretty plan, Miss Jean, but your brother is quite a bit taller than you are, isn't he? I'm afraid that might be noticed."
She looked crestfallen, but only for a moment. "Then I don't see but what we shall have to get him out through the window," she said.
"I have read of such things," I granted her.
"Oh, yes, I have read quantities of stories where prisoners were helped to escape," she said eagerly. "It always can be done,--one way if not another. Last night I was trying to think it out, and I had six plans all thought out. What's the use of being twins, if it doesn't count for something?"
"I am sure it counts for a great deal, Miss Jean, even if--"
"But I shall be able to," she cried, cutting across my unspoken words. "I must. Of course when I am talking to Gene I am as cheerful as possible, and I don't let him see that I--I'm a bit afraid, but truly, you know, I--I--I don't like it." Her lips were quivering.
"Dear child! Now, listen to me. We'll make an agreement. Let me have the first shot in this business. If we can get him out through the front door, with everybody cheering and shaking his hands, that will be better than an escape through the window, and living in hiding and in fear the rest of his life, won't it? But if that doesn't work,--if I see surely that the only way to save him from the vengeance of the law is to steal him away,--then I am with you, to the bitter end. I'll meet you with disguise, rope ladder, anything you can think of. But let me have my chance first, in my own way. Agreed?"
She stopped in the street to put out her hand and shake mine firmly. Her eyes were as bright and steady as pilot lights.
"I think you are perfectly splendid," she said with conviction. I have forgotten some important things in my life and I expect to forget a good many more, but I shall never forget the thrill that came to me with that absurd, girlish endorsement! I think it was the way she said it that made it seem so much like a gold medal pinned upon my breast.
"I shall arrange for you to have a quiet talk with your brother, and then I'll leave you for a while. You will probably be watched, but I think you can speak without being overheard. I want you to remember carefully what your brother says."