What Dorothy did realise was that, after all, her guardian might not be so dead as everyone had supposed. How that might be she did not understand; she did not try to understand. The appreciation of the fact was enough for her; indeed, it was too much, though her appreciation was imperfect. She did not wish to make sure if her guardian really had still in him the spark of life, however dim the spark might be; she desired nothing less. It did not occur to her to think that the spark might be indeed so dim that only instant, expert aid could succeed in fanning it back to flame. She did not stay to consider that if the man was not entirely dead; that if prompt attention might bring him back to a hold on life, however precarious that hold might be; then it was her business, and her duty, to use every available means to procure for him that assistance with the least possible delay; and that if she neglected, wittingly, to do so and, in consequence, he met that fate which, but for her, he might, at least temporarily, have been snatched from, then the actual responsibility for his death lay at her door, as something for which, one day, she might be called to account. Believing that he was struggling back to life, her one wish was to escape before he succeeded; it was his success she feared, not his failure. Failing to recognise the fact that, if he did succeed, the burden of blood-guiltiness would be lifted from the stranger's shoulders, and from hers; all she cared for was that he should not find her there.
Panic made her callous. Plainly his struggles increased; each second he fought harder and harder for his life. It never occurred to her that if she did escape he would probably be left alone till the morning, when the odds were that assistance would came too late. She gave no heed to the thought of the strong man contending, in the pitch-black room, helplessly, with death, with help, willing help, so close at hand; that was a picture which was to occur to her later. By standing on tiptoe she could just get hold of the top of the open window. Pulling herself up; getting her feet on to the sill; leaning out of the open upper half, she tried to see what was beyond. It was not easy to decide. The light was puzzling. Although the stars were visible overhead they were not sufficiently bright to enable her to make out, with certainty, what was below. She seemed to be looking down into some sort of yard, in which dark objects were dimly visible. She supposed it was probably the stable yard; what the dark objects were she could not determine. There were no lights; no one appeared to be moving about; they could hardly be vehicles which, at that hour, had been left out in the open. She seemed to be higher than she expected. Although the ground was invisible it seemed to be very far below. How she was to reach it from the window she had not a notion; her heart failed at the thought of trying to do so. The only way would be to scramble, somehow, over the top sash; then to descend, also somehow, to the sill without; then to lower herself, for the third time, somehow, till she hung from the sill by her hands; and drop, she did not know how far through space, nor did she know into, or on to, what. The prospect was not an alluring one.
At the convent there had been a girl, a refractory young lady, who, finding herself ill at ease in her surroundings, essayed to elude them by way of a window which looked out, over the wall, on to the road. That it was unnecessary to take such an unusual route, since she had only to give utterance to her desire to leave to find herself outside as quickly as she could wish, was nothing to her. She was a young lady of a romantic turn of mind. Possibly she wished to make an impression, not only on her schoolfellows and the Sisters, but also on her parents. She knotted together the sheets which she took from her bed; it was presumed that she tied one end to a bar which ran across the window, and, squeezing past it, began to descend by means of the sheets to which she clung. If she did tie one end of the sheet to the bar, then, apparently, it was not tied very securely; because, seemingly, before she got very far, it came unfastened, with the result that she descended with a degree of rapidity which exceeded her expectations. She struck her head, it seemed, with great force against the wall; so that by the time she reached the ground, on which they found her, some twelve feet below, she was, in all human probability, already dead.
That young lady's tragic fate was the one event which marked the fifteen years Dorothy had spent in the convent. Now, as she leaned out of the open upper half of the window, peering down at the impenetrable darkness which masked whatever might be below, the story came back to her with a vividness which was most unwelcome. Dorothy's plight was worse than hers. She had made elaborate preparations for what she well knew was in front of her; yet she had come to utter dire grief. How much more likely, Dorothy felt, was disaster to overtake her, if she plunged, practically blindfold, through unknown depths into unknown perils? She turned giddy at the thought of trying to climb on to the top of that open sash. Almost involuntarily she drew her head back into the room. Better, almost, anything rather than that she should risk being dashed to pieces by flinging herself blindly into space. She would give up her mad attempt.
Moved by this new impulse to observe discretion, she had begun to lower herself on to the floor of the room, when, again, there came that sound--louder, more insistent, as if someone were bursting his lungs in the violence of his gasps for breath. Then there was a crash, which shook the room, as someone, something, fell from the table on to the floor. All was still. In that ominous silence, the girl, seized with a sudden frenzy of panic, was on to the top of the sash probably before she clearly realised what it was that she was doing; over on the other side; standing on the sill; from which she began to lower herself with a swiftness and an agility of which she would scarcely have been capable had the conditions been normal. For some seconds she clung with her small hands to the rough edge of the sill. She was conscious that she had brought her leg into unpleasant contact with the wall, and inflicted on herself various contusions. Even in that eleventh hour, as she hung between earth and heaven, conviction came to her of the madness of what she was doing. Had it been possible she would have drawn herself back into the room even then, but it was not possible. From where she was there was no way back. Her slender arms were incapable of raising even her slight body. Such muscles as she had became relaxed; she seemed to be dragging her arms out of their sockets; her hands were slipping. Though she gripped the sill till she felt the rough stone cutting her fingers she could get no hold. The question as to whether she would risk death by dropping into space was no longer one for her decision; with all the unwillingness in the world to let herself go, she could not keep from falling. She made an effort to stay where she was for yet another breathing space; so that, at least, she might collect her thoughts before she went, perhaps, into eternity. The effort had the contrary effect to that which she intended. Instead of delaying it, it hastened the end. Her hands could grip the sill no longer. Her finger-tips were on the very edge. In another instant they would be over, and then---- Of what might happen then she dared not think.
That instant came. The slip came quickly at the last; the sill seemed suddenly to be jerked away. She tried to catch at something, and could not. She closed her eyes; convulsively rather than of intention; as if she would shut out the sight of what was about to happen; she held her breath, and fell. As she fell strange noises were in her ears, which seemed to come from the room from which, at last, she had escaped.
CHAPTER VII
[THE CARAVAN]
How long she had been there she did not know. She looked about her, wondering where she was; how she had come there. She was in the open air; above her were the stars in the sky. She seemed to be lying on some rubbish; but something hard was underneath. How her head ached; it made her feel so stupid. Putting up her hand to soothe it, she found that it hurt her almost as much as her head. Staring at it, in the dim light she could just make out that it was covered with something wet. All at once she remembered, hazily; and sat up straighter. She had dropped from the window--it must be somewhere above her; she could not see it from where she was. This rough surface which she touched when she put out her poor, hurt hand must be the outer wall of the hotel.
One thing was plain: she was not dead; and so it behoved her not to stay where she was a moment longer than she could help; she had not dropped from the window to spend the night on the ground immediately beneath. She raised herself to her feet; the process occasioning her more pain than she had expected. It was all she could do to stand. One ankle showed a disposition to double up; her left leg smarted so that the pain of it brought the tears into her eyes. Indeed, there were smarts and aches all over her; her arms seemed limp and her hands nerveless; her whole body felt hurt, and bruised, and shaken. Her first impulse, when she learnt the plight she was in, was to sink back on to the ground, from which she had with such difficulty raised herself, and cry. But, even in the half-dazed condition in which she was, she recognised that such a mode of procedure would be worse than futile. Since she had risked so much to get so far she might at least try to get a little farther. Now, in all probability, only a little courage was needed to enable her to get at least clear away from that immediate neighbourhood.