Anna was shivering: shivering with vexation and fear. Herbert thought it
would be better that he should boldly knock up Hester; and he suggested
it: nay, he pressed it. But the proposal sounded more alarming to Anna
than any that had gone before it. It seemed that there was nothing to be
done.
How long she sat there, crying and shivering and refusing to be
comforted or to hear reason, she could not tell. Half the night, it
seemed. But Anna, you must remember, was counting time by her own state
of mind, not by the clock. Suddenly a bright thought, as a ray of light,
flashed into her brain.
"There's the pantry window," she cried, arresting her tears. "How could
I ever have forgotten it? There is no glass, and thee art strong enough
to push in the wire."
This pantry window Herbert Dare had known nothing about. It was at the
side of the house, thickly surrounded by shrubs; a square window frame,
protected by wire. He fought his way to it amidst the shrubs; but to get
in proved a work of time and difficulty. The window was at some height
from the ground, the wire was strong. Anna sat on the door-step, never
stirring, leaving him to get in if he could, her tears falling, and
terrific visions of Patience's anger chasing each other through her
mind. And the night went on.
"Anna!"
She could have shouted forth a cry of delight as she leaped up. He had
entered, had found his way to the kitchen window, had gently raised it,
and was softly calling to her. Some little difficulty still, but with
Herbert's assistance she was safely landed, a great tear in her dress
the only damage. He had managed to obtain a light by means of some
fusees in his pocket, and had lighted a candle. Anna sat down on a
chair, her face radiant through her tears. "How shall I ever thank
thee?"
He was looking at his fingers with a half-serious, half-mocking
expression of dismay. The wire had torn them in many places, and they
were bleeding. "I could have got in quicker had I forced the wire out in
the middle," he observed, "but that would have told tales. I pushed it
away from the side, and have pushed it back again into its place as well
as I could. Perhaps it may escape notice."
"How shall I ever thank thee?" was all Anna could repeat in her
gratitude.
"Now you know what you must do, Anna," said he. "I am going to jump out
through the window, and be off home. You must shut it and fasten it
after me: I'd shut it myself, after I'm out, but that these stains on my
fingers would be transferred to the frame. And when you leave the
kitchen, remember to turn the key of the door outside. I found it
turned. Do you understand? And now farewell, my little locked-out
princess. Don't say I have not worked wonders for you, as the good
spirits do in the fairy tales."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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