CHAPTER XXXIII.
ROBBINS LAUNCHES A THUNDERBOLT.
My opinion of Hildegarde had undergone a most miraculous change of late.
Time was when I had been sorely inclined to believe her the most frivolous and exacting of her sex; but a complete revolution seemed to have taken place within my mind; old things had passed away, and in the new dispensation she stood out in transcendental glory, a queen among women.
Believing, then, that she possessed uncommon attributes of good sense, I was quite positive she would not give tongue in such a clamorous way unless she saw reason for it.
There was.
A galvanic shock could not have given me a more rapid start than was brought about by her voice. I charged across that azotea with hurricane fury.
It did not take me long to understand what was up, for Hildegarde was pointing to the parapet, where, in the starlight I could see some sort of a figure crouching.
The man was in the act of crawling over, but when I made a plunge in his direction he appeared to be seized with a sudden vertigo of fright, for his haste to retreat caused him to lose his grip.
I heard him crash through the branches of a flowering tree below, and made up my mind we would not be seriously inconvenienced by this same climber again.