But that was an unlucky laugh of mine; it turned his wrath on me. He made a dive toward me. I ducked and ran. Oh, how I ran! But if he hadn't slipped on the curb he'd have had me. As he fell, though, he let out a yell.
"Stop thief! stop thief! Thief! Thief! Thief!"
May you never hear it, Mag, behind you when you've somebody else's diamonds in your pocket. It sounds—it sounds the way the bay of the hounds must sound to the hare. It seems to fly along with the air; at the same time to be behind you, at your side, even in front of you.
I heard it bellowed in a dozen different voices, and every now and then I could hear Moriway as I pelted on—that brassy, cruel bellow of his that made my heart sick.
And then all at once I heard a policeman's whistle.
That whistle was like a signal—I saw the gates of the Correction open before me. I saw your Nance, Tom, in a neat striped dress, and she was behind bars—bars—bars! There were bars everywhere before me. In fact, I felt them against my very hands, for in my mad race I had shot up a blind alley—a street that ended in a garden behind an iron fence.
I grabbed the diamonds to throw them from me, but I couldn't—I just couldn't! I jumped the fence where the gate was low, and with that whistle flying shrill and shriller after me I ran to the house.
I might have jumped from the frying-pan? Of course, I might. But it was all fire to me. To be caught at the end is at least no worse than to be caught at the beginning. Anyhow, it was my one chance, and I took it as unhesitatingly as a rat takes a leap into a trap to escape a terrier. Only—only, it was my luck that the trap wasn't set! The room was empty. I pushed open a glass door, and fell over an open trunk that stood beside it.
It bruised my knee and tore my hand, but oh!—it was nuts to me. For it was a woman's trunk filled with women's things.
A skirt! A blessed skirt! And not a striped one. I threw off the bell-boy's jacket and I got into that dear dress so quick it made my head swim.