“Yes, I know. I knew you would keep your word. And it was just after I wrote you I slipped down the cellar stairs. It came of being in a hurry. I made sure I never would get on my feet again, but very soon I discovered that I was more scared than hurt. And I saw then there might be a chance of keeping him off his guard if he thought I was like to die, and that thus I might escape the readier. It was not hard to fool the doctors. I did just the same with them I did with the asylum folks. I said yes whenever I thought they expected it, and though I had some contradictory symptoms, they made out a bad state of things with the spine, and gave mighty little hope of my recovery. But what I hadn’t counted on was that my friends would take such good care of me. I didn’t know I had friends. It pleased me so I was wanting to cry for joy; yet it frightened me so I didn’t know which way to turn.”
“But, great heavens! Aunt Margaret,” the young Southerner burst out, unable to restrain himself longer, “you had no need to be so afraid of me!”
The old woman looked at him, more in suspicion than in hope, but she went on, not answering: “The night I did escape, it was by accident. I never would say one word to him hardly, though he tried again and again to start a talk; but I would seem too ill; and he’s a Cary, anyhow, and couldn’t be rude to a lady. That night he went into the other room. He was so quiet I reckoned he was asleep, and, thinking that here might be a chance for me, I slipped out of bed, soft as soft, and slipped over to the crack of the door—it just wasn’t closed!—and I peeked in on him—”
“And you were behind the door when he heard the noise?” exclaimed Amos. “But what made the noise?”
“Oh, I reckon just ’Squire jumping out of the window; he gave a kind of screech.”
“But I don’t understand,” cried Allerton. “I went into the room, and it was empty.”
“No, sir,” said Miss Cary, plucking up more spirit in the presence of Wickliff—“no, sir; I was behind the door. You didn’t push it shut.”
“But I ran all round the room.”
“No, sir; not till you looked out of the window. While you were looking out of the window I slipped out of the door; and I was so scared lest you should see me that I wasn’t afraid of anything else; and I got down-stairs while you were looking in the closet, and found my clothes there, and so got out.”
“But I was sure I went round the room first,” cried Allerton.