“Half past ten!” she whispered in consternation. “Rennie will leave. The place will be in darkness and I shall be lost! What shall I do?”
Again she caught a faint gleam of light. Watching it for a moment, and seeing that it was steady and constant, she dared to creep toward it.
Drawing nearer, she saw that it came drifting down an elevator shaft from some place a long way above.
“The elevator is there. The door is open!” she said to herself in surprise. “And there is no one in it.”
Just then, as she strained her ears to listen, she caught again that heavy, even tread of the watchman.
Our nerves are strange masters. A great general is thrown into panic at sight of a cat; a woman of national fame goes into convulsions at sight of rippling water on the sea. As for Lucile, at that moment nothing could have so overthrown her whole mental balance as that steady tramp-tramp of the watchman.
This time it drove her to the most curious action. As a wild animal, driven, winded, cornered, will sometimes dash into the very trap that has been set for him, so this girl, leaping forward, entered the elevator cage.
Had there been more time, it may have been that her scattered wits returning would have told her that here, where the dim light set out her whole form in profile, was the most dangerous spot of all.
Before she had time to think of this the elevator gave a sudden lurch and started upward.
Nothing could have been more startling. Lucile had never seen an elevator ascend without an operator at the levers and she naturally believed it could not be done; yet here she was in the cage, going up.