“Why—some noise, in the other room,” she said with a tremor easily simulated, in her excited state. “I am sure I heard something in there, moving!”
“Hum—let’s see,” said John.
“It might be that I left the window open,” said Goodwife Soam.
The man took the lamp, opened the door to the adjoining apartment, and went in, followed by his wife. Garde, with a gasp, and a clutching at her heart, lifted the keys from their nail and dropped them into her pocket with a barely audible jingle. She followed her aunt a second later.
“Why, it was—nothing, after all,” she said, weaving a trifle in her stress of emotion and nervousness. “But the window was up, as you said. I’m glad that was all. Good night.”
“Good night,” said John Soam and his wife, from the window which John was pushing down, and without waiting another minute, Garde let herself out and sped away in the darkness.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
GARDE’S ORDEAL.
How to get the keys into Adam’s possession, now that she had them in her own, was the first question that presented itself to the mind of Garde. Her ruse at her uncle’s had been so quickly and easily planned and executed that she had almost fancied Adam freed already. Yet as she hastened homeward, filled with conflicting emotions of excitement, grief and despair, she soon comprehended that her task had not as yet really begun.
Could she only ascertain in what portion of the prison the rover was incarcerated, she thought it might be possible to convey him the keys through the window, provided he had one in his cell. Thinking of this, she naturally remembered the jailer’s wife, a poor ailing creature, who lived in the building, with her husband, and to whom Goody Dune had ministered, times without number, frequently sending Garde with simples to relieve her of multitudinous aches and pains. This was her cue. She could take her some of the herbs of which a plentiful stock had been collected in the Donner household, for the use of her grandfather.