And Dr. Langsdale turned into his own room, near Mr. Burton's, so that the nurse could have him at the sick man's bedside in an instant. Catharine went slowly toward her apartments in the tower. Her whole body ached with weariness. Three days before her father was stricken suddenly, and Dr. Langsdale was called by telegram from New York city. She had not slept because, until that afternoon, it was uncertain whether her father would live or die. And he was all she had in the world.
Her bedroom was low-ceilinged and quaintly furnished, with three deep windows looking out over the Hudson. Berkeley Manor stood on the very edge of the Palisades, and its tower rose two hundred feet above the rocky shore of the river. She threw herself into one of the huge curving window divans, and, with her eyes upon the village that straggled over the opposite hill, watched its lights vanish one by one. She sat there nearly an hour, and then, remembering the doctor and his medicine, went to her dressing-table. She sat in the chair in front of its low mirror and wondered how she could be so wakeful, how her mind could be so active, when she had been sleepless so long. As she thought, she stared vaguely into the mirror, without seeing anything. It was so turned that there was a reflection of the floor half-way under the big bed. She presently became conscious that two small, bright circles were shining from the darkness under there.
"The cat," she thought, looking more closely.
She was about to call it, when she saw, a little further down, a streak of brightness. The image in the glass was gradually getting clearer as her eyes grew accustomed. Slowly, but with awful distinctness, she traced the outlines of a man lying under the bed. From the shine of his eyes, she thought he was looking straight at her. She fell back in the chair so that he no longer could see the reflection of her face. She felt as if the blood were leaving the surface of her body and freezing solid around her heart.
"I must not faint," she thought, hurriedly. "I must do something. He does not know I have seen him. He thought he was hidden by the darkness. What shall I do? What shall I do?"
She went back to the window and leaned far out. There was some comfort even in getting her head out of that room. Her thoughts were running in circles like a flock of bewildered chickens. She could not think of anything definite. Disconnected bits of stories she had read about people in this position raced through her brain, but she could bring back nothing helpful.
"I'll ring the bell," she said to herself at last, and half started away from the window. Then she remembered that the bell had been so muffled that its sound would not reach the ears of the sleeping servants. Again her thoughts whirled round and round, getting nowhere. And again a definite idea flashed. "I'll go and lock the door on the outside. He will be locked in. Before he can get the door broken down, I will have them all here."
This pleased her so much that she was stronger, more courageous. "Yes," she thought, glancing at the key which was on the inside. "I can change it to the outside easily. Where he is lying he cannot see what I am about."
She went to the closet and pretended to be searching for something.
"Pshaw!" she exclaimed, in a vexed tone, and went on toward the door. Her hand was on the key, when she stopped and shivered. "I forgot father," she thought. "If I lock this man in and go for help there will be a terrible uproar. It will surely awaken father and alarm him. And Dr. Langsdale said that would be fatal. The man will fight, the revolver will go off, and perhaps some one will be killed."