“I will.”
Jane felt sure that, if she had to watch Arnold balancing on that plank miles above the ground, she would never be able to cross it herself.
The reflection that it was Renata, and not she, who would have to make the descent fortified her considerably. Even so, she never quite knew how she crossed to the other window. It was an affair of clenched teeth and a mind that shut out resolutely everything except the next groping clutch of the hand—the next carefully taken step.
She sank against the window-sill and heard Arnold follow her. Just at the end he slipped; he seemed to change his feet, and then with a heavy thud pitched down on the top of Jane.
She thought he said “Damn!” and she was quite sure that she said “Idiot!”
There was an awful moment while they listened for the fall of the plank, but it held to the coping by a bare half-inch.
“Thank goodness I’m not Renata!” said Jane, with heartfelt sincerity. And—
“Thank goodness, you’re not!” returned Mr. Todhunter, with equal fervour, and at that moment the window opened.
There was a little sobbing gasp, and a girl was clinging to Arnold Todhunter and whispering:
“Darling—darling, I thought you’d never come.”