An hour went by; it was nearly half-past two, and before very long the early summer morning would be breaking in the east. What she did must be done quickly, and with a calmness born of utter despair she made her preparations. The box in which her diamonds were kept was laid empty in her drawer, which stood open, its contents tossed up promiscuously, and her empty purse lying upon the table. The emeralds and pearls were put carefully away unharmed, as were some smaller articles of jewelry. Then with trembling, ice-cold hands she made herself ready for bed, and laid her throbbing head upon her pillow just as the clock struck three. She had taken from a shelf, and looked at a bottle of laudanum, and thought how easy it would be to end it all, but she dared not do it when she thought seriously about it. She believed in a hereafter; in the Heaven where Annie had gone, and she could not deliberately throw away all chance of ever entering there.
“I may repent; the thief did at the last hour,” she said, as she drew the bedclothes about her, and felt that she was ready for the first scene in the strange drama about to be acted.
CHAPTER XLII.
THE ALARM.
Neither Mrs. Burton nor Maude had slept very soundly that night. Both had been haunted with a conviction that they heard something about the house, stealthy footsteps Mrs. Burton thought, and she shook her snoring spouse vigorously, and tried to make him get up, receiving for reply, “Pish, only one of your fidgets; go to sleep, do, and let me alone.”
And so poor, timid Mrs. Burton listened until her ears ached, and, hearing nothing more, made up her mind that she had been mistaken, and there really was no cause for alarm. Maude, too, had taken fright, and knocked softly at Georgie’s door, but Georgie was in the woodbine arbor, and did not hear her, and she went back to bed and fell asleep again, and was just dreaming that her wedding had proved to be her funeral, when a piercing shriek rang through the house, followed by another and another, each louder, more appalling than the other, until every sleeper was awake and huddling together in the halls, demanded what it was, and where the screams came from.
Jack was the first to decide that the noise was in Georgie’s room, and entering through the unlocked door, he saw his sister sitting up in bed; her eyes rolling wildly, her long black hair falling over her night-dress, and her whole face the very image of terror, as she shrieked, “The burglar—the man—been here—in this room—look—where he went and what he did. Oh! Jack, Jack, I am dying, I shall die!”
She continued her wild ravings until Jack succeeded in quieting her so far that she was able to tell her story, amid a series of moans and gasps and sobs. She had been suddenly awakened by some slight sound in her room, and saw a man wearing a mask, standing, revolver in hand, close at her bedside, and evidently watching her. Before she could scream, so paralyzed was she with fear, his hand was over her mouth, and his hot breath on her face, as he bent close to her and said, “Be perfectly quiet, if you wish to save your life. Scream once, or make any sound which shall attract attention, and you are a dead woman before I leave the room. I have no wish to harm you, but your diamonds I must have.” Frozen with terror she had not dared to move, but lay perfectly still while the villain searched her dressing-bureau, and took, she did not know what.
“Look, Maude,” she gasped; but Maude had already looked, and found the diamonds gone, and the purse empty; but the emeralds and pearls were there safe,—a state of things accounted for on the supposition that the robber had been startled by some noise, and left his depredations unfinished. He fled through the door, Georgie said; and having finished her tale, she fainted entirely away, while the male members of the house dispersed outside to hunt for the thief, and the ladies staid to minister to the fainting woman.
There was no shamming now. Georgie had borne so much, and suffered so much, that the faint was real; and she lay so long unconscious, and looked so white and corpse-like, that Mrs. Burton went off into hysterics, declaring her darling was dead. As soon as possible, a physician came, and after carefully examining his patient, and listening to the story of the robbery as related by each of the dozen women in the house, appeared to be greatly puzzled, and said he hardly knew what to think. It was scarcely possible that a sudden fright, however great it might have been, could have thrown the whole nervous system so completely out of balance as Miss Burton’s seemed to be. Had she been perfectly well heretofore?