At that same instant, there flashed through her mind the note of warning tacked on the schooner. Perhaps this was the man who had placed it there.
In her consternation, she missed a stroke. One skate struck a crack in the ice; the clamp slipped; the skate went flying; disaster impended.
Florence was not a person to be easily defeated. One instant she had kicked the remaining skate from her foot and the next she was racing away over the glistening ice. She stumbled and all but fell. But, gaining courage from the near-by sloping bank, she plunged on.
Now she was ten yards away, now five. The metal cut-cut of skates behind her grew louder. Redoubling her efforts, she at last flung herself upon the snowy slope, to climb on hands and knees to the crest, then to race across a level space and gain the sheltering shadows of the museum.
It had been a hard struggle. For a few seconds she leaned panting against the wall. One skate was still in her hand. Without thinking why, she tucked this skate into the belt of her coat.
Her mind was in a whirl. What should she do? She was not safe here. For the man to remove his skates and scale the bank required but a moment. They were alone in the frozen park, a mile from any protection she could be sure of. She was not a good runner.
“No,” she whispered, “I couldn’t do it.”
She chanced to glance up, and her lips parted in a suppressed exclamation. There was a window open above her. True, it was some fifteen feet up, but there was an iron grating on the window beneath it.
“If only the grating is not rusted out,” she murmured hopefully, and the next instant she had reached the ledge of brickwork and was shaking the railing vigorously.
“It’ll hold I guess.”