“I believe you would,” and Elsie sobbed herself into a troubled sleep.
The next day was her birthday.
She awoke early, and lay, with a leaden heart, but with an alert brain, trying to think of some plan of escape. She was sure if she could break her prison doors, she could get help and rescue Kimball Webb, who, she felt certain, was confined in the upper part of the same house.
Desperate, she rose early, and looked about. Her tiny bedroom, though clean and airy, was protected by the iron barred windows so often seen in basements, and the one door was locked at night by Mrs. Pike.
There was no chance, and yet she would not give up. She wrote on a bit of paper, her home address, and wrote beneath it, “Take this paper to the house, and tell them the number of this house, and they will give you ten dollars.”
This paper she folded small and secreted in her waist. She had a last, a forlorn hope, but she meant to try it.
She manœuvred very carefully to be about when the milk man came, and with what was almost sleight of hand she did manage to tuck the paper into his big red hand almost under the very nose of Mrs. Pike.
The man gave her a sharp glance and closed his fingers on the paper, going off without a word.
“What you doing up so early?” asked Mrs. Pike, and Elsie said, “I couldn’t sleep so I got up.” Then she quickly changed the subject and managed to divert the woman by her chatter.
The milkman, not at all averse to getting an extra ten dollars, concluded to get to the address so strangely given to him, as soon as he had finished his morning rounds. It never occurred to his limited imagination that he could do otherwise than continue his daily routine.