That was enough for her. She felt for it, found it, and without thought of him or word to him, she climbed nimbly in. That done she stooped and drew the chair up, and closed the window down upon him and secured it. Next, feeling for the door of Mr. Rogers’s room she got rid of the chair, and seized her hidden candle and crept out and up the stairs. Apparently all the house, save the man who had detected her, slept. But she did not dare to pause or prove the fact. She had had her lesson and a severe one; and she did not breathe freely until the door of her chamber was locked behind her, and she knew herself once more within the bounds of the usual and the proper.
Then for a brief while, as she tore off her damp clothes, her thoughts ran stormily on Mr. Sutton: nor did she dream, or he, from what things he had saved her. The man was a wretch, a spy, a sneak trying to worm himself into her confidence. She would box his ears if he threatened her or referred to the matter again. And if he told others—she did not know what she would not do! For the rest, she had let herself be scared by a nothing, by a step, by a sound; and she despised herself for her cowardice. But—she had that consolation—she had played her part, she had gone to the rendezvous, she had not failed. The fault lay with him who should have met her there, and who had not met her.
And so, shivering and chilled—for bedroom fires were not yet, and she was worn out with fright and exposure—she hid herself under the heavy patchwork quilt and sought comfort in the sleep of exhaustion. It was not long in coming, for she suspected no more than she knew. Like the purblind insect that creeps upon the crowded pavement and is missed by a hundred feet, she discerned neither the dangers which she had so narrowly escaped, nor those into which her late action was fated to hurry her.
CHAPTER XVII
THE EDGE OF THE STORM
It was daylight when she awoke; but it had not been daylight long. Yet some one was knocking; and knocking loudly at the door of her bedroom. She rose on her elbow, and looking at the half-curtained window decided that it was eight o’clock, perhaps a little later. But not so much later that they need raise the house in waking her.
“Thank you,” she cried petulantly. “That will do! That will do! I am awake.” And she laid her head on the pillow again, and closing her eyes, sighed deeply. The events of the night were coming back to her—and with them her troubles.
But, “Please to open the door, miss!” came the answer in gruff accents. “I want to speak to you, by your leave.”
Henrietta sat up, her hair straggling from under the nightcap that framed her pretty features. The voice that demanded entrance was Mrs. Gilson’s: and even over Henrietta that voice had power. She parleyed no longer. She threw a wrap about her, and hastily opened the door.
“What is it?” she asked. “Mrs. Gilson, is it you?”
“Be good enough,” the landlady answered, “to let me come in a minute, miss.”