“I haven't caught anybody in this neighborhood breaking into our house yet,” said Fred, “and I'd be glad to see even a burglar!”
They were seated on the brick terrace that overlooked the lake. It was just before the dinner hour, and the dusk of a wonderful October night had fallen on the hedges, the clumps of evergreens, the rows of close-clipped box. A full moon was just showing itself above the tree-tops, turning the lake into moving silver. Fred rose from his wicker chair and, crossing to his young bride, touched her hair fearfully with the tips of his fingers.
“What if we don't know anybody, Win,” he said, “and nobody knows us? It's been a perfectly good honeymoon, hasn't it? If you just look at it that way, it works out all right. We came here really for our honeymoon, to be together, to be alone—”
Winnie laughed shortly. “They certainly have left us alone!” she sighed.
“But where else could we have been any happier?” demanded the young husband loyally. “Where will you find any prettier place than this, just as it is at this minute, so still and sweet and silent? There's nothing the matter with that moon, is there? Nothing the matter with the lake? Where's there a better place for a honeymoon? It's a bower—a bower of peace, solitude a—bower of—”
As though mocking his words, there burst upon the sleeping countryside the shriek of a giant siren. It was raucous, virulent, insulting. It came as sharply as a scream of terror, it continued in a bellow of rage. Then, as suddenly as it had cried aloud, it sank to silence; only after a pause of an instant, as though giving a signal, to shriek again in two sharp blasts. And then again it broke into the hideous long drawn scream of rage, insistent, breathless, commanding; filling the soul of him who heard it, even of the innocent, with alarm.
“In the name of Heaven!” gasped Keep, “what's that?”
Down the terrace the butler was hastening toward them. When he stopped, he spoke as though he were announcing dinner. “A convict, sir,” he said, “has escaped from Sing Sing. I thought you might not understand the whistle. I thought perhaps you would wish Mrs. Keep to come in-doors.”
“Why?” asked Winnie Keep.
“The house is near the road, madam,” said the butler. “And there are so many trees and bushes. Last summer two of them hid here, and the keepers—there was a fight.” The man glanced at Keep. Fred touched his wife on the arm.