I begin from side to side, up, down, and around. Ha! ha! at last! A little drawer shoots out almost in my face, startling me like a jack-in-the-box.
A faint perfume of crushed violets salutes my nostrils. The letters—they are there in the bottom of the drawer! I know them too well by the shape of the square large envelopes. They cost me many a dollar to send through the stage-door by the gouty Cerberus at the gate when Bella trod the boards.
I reach out my hand to seize them, when an awful scream causes me to stagger back in dismay.
Bella Bracebridge, in a jaunty travelling dress, stands in the doorway in the attitude of a tragic queen—her eyes flashing, her bosom heaving, just as she looked the day she asked for a raise in salary and didn't get it.
She steps towards me: I retreat, transfixed by her defiant attitude. She fear a common burglar? Never!
I know she intends to seize me and scream for help, and I am afraid, too, that she may recognize my face. So I step back—back, edging towards the window.
She reaches out her hand to seize me, then totters and falls in a dead faint.
I look around for Vandeleur. He has lost all presence of mind; is staring at the figure on the floor, with wild, dilated eyes, and an expression of hopeless idiocy on his face. I can hear people moving below stairs. Her scream must have aroused the house. "Vandeleur," shaking him by the arm, "we must run for it. Do you understand? Ten years! Hard labor!"—the last words hissed excitedly in his ear.
"What? where? who?" he mumbles, with a face as expressive as that of codfish.
I rush to the balcony to see if we can make the jump below. It is dark, but the leap must be made. Better a broken leg than a ball and chain on a healthy limb for years and years.