I took up a batch of manuscript from the desk at my elbow and began to read in rather desultory fashion, making a correction here and there with a pencil.
“Another delusion shattered,” I murmured. “They say one can write so much better in the quiet of the country than amid the bustle and distractions of town. That is bunkum. This one can’t, anyway. I thought I would have made a good start with this book, but I have done next to nothing, and what there is of it is rotten. I could do more work in a week in London than I shall do in three months of this. I think I’ll be getting back next week.”
But I was wrong in saying that nothing ever happened in Cartordale. Adventure was even at that moment coming towards me with very hurried footsteps.
The time—it is essential always to be precise in details—was fifty-three minutes past eleven, and the date February 23rd.
It came, the beginning of the story, with a quick, almost peremptory tapping on the window-pane and then the bottom sash was slowly pushed up. I turned to the desk and took a revolver from one of the small drawers, then strode across the room and raised the blind with a quick rattle, half expecting that my visitor would reveal himself in the shape of a burglar. What I saw brought even me to a standstill, little susceptible as I am to surprises of any sort.
My visitor was not a burglar—at least, not a male of that species—but a girl, who looked young enough to be in her teens, though she may have been a year or two outside them, and a great deal too pretty to be wandering about alone at that time of night. She was wearing a long, sleeveless cloak and a grey, woollen cap, from beneath which part of her hair had escaped and was blowing about her face in little wisps of bronze-gold cloud.
“Let me in,” she whispered. “Please—I have hurt myself and I am afraid to go on.”
I stretched out my hands and, placing them beneath her arms, lifted her over the low window-sill and into the room.
“How strong you are,” she murmured.
But even as she said that, the something that had kept her up gave way and she lay a limp, dead weight in my clasp. I carried her to the couch, but as I placed her down and began to unfasten the long, grey cloak, I noticed that the sleeve of her white blouse was stained with blood. That was evidently the hurt to which she had referred; and I began to wonder whether I had not better summon my housekeeper. It looked essentially a case for feminine aid. The girl, however, was already recovering.