And all this time Tavia trembled there, in her bed—she who was wide awake, and she who usually could boast of some courage!
“Oh!” she kept gasping, “I heard them long ago! They are inside, I’m sure!”
“Heard them long ago!” Dorothy took time to exclaim, “Then do, for goodness sake, do something! Get up and make a noise anyway! John will be in from the stable in a moment. Get up and slip on your robe,” for Tavia seemed “glued” to the spot.
By this time the boys were out in the hall, Ned with a glittering revolver clutched firmly in his hand, and his younger brother leading the way with a night light thrust out like a danger signal.
“Boys! boys!” begged Mrs. White. “Do be careful! Don’t shoot even if you—Oh, I wish you would wait until John comes. I know I shall faint if I hear a shot!”
Indeed, the mother was almost in a state of collapse at that very moment, and Dorothy, meeting her aunt in the hall, quietly put her arm around her and led her away from the stairway into the secluded alcove.
“Auntie, dear! Don’t be so alarmed,” soothed Dorothy. “They are surely gone by this time. They never hang around after the lights are turned on. And when that bell went off, I know they were glad to get off at that signal.”
“Oh, I’m so—glad—Dorothy, that you turned in the alarm,” gasped Mrs. White, “for the boys—were determined to go right down upon them—Oh! I feel some one would surely have been shot—if you had not acted so quickly!” and the trembling woman sank down on Dorothy’s couch, thoroughly exhausted.
“There they go! There they go!” called Tavia, throwing up the curtains, and thrusting her head out of the window.
“See! There’s two men! Running down the path!”