A Thief in the Night | Page 8

threshold. I may have stood there
for a dozen minutes, listening to the loud hall clock and to the gentle
dentistry of Raffles in the mouth of the safe behind me, when a third
sound thrilled my every nerve. It was the equally cautious opening of a
door in the gallery overhead.
I moistened my lips to whisper a word of warning to Raffles. But his
ears had been as quick as mine, and something longer. His lantern
darkened as I turned my head; next moment I felt his breath upon the
back of my neck. It was now too late even for a whisper, and quite out
of the question to close the mutilated door. There we could only stand,
I on the threshold, Raffles at my elbow, while one carrying a candle
crept down the stairs.
The study-door was at right angles to the lowest flight, and just to the
right of one alighting in the hall. It was thus impossible for us to see
who it was until the person was close abreast of us; but by the rustle of
the gown we knew that it was one of the ladies, and dressed just as she
had come from theatre or ball. Insensibly I drew back as the candle
swam into our field of vision: it had not traversed many inches when a
hand was clapped firmly but silently across my mouth.

I could forgive Raffles for that, at any rate! In another breath I should
have cried aloud: for the girl with the candle, the girl in her ball-dress,
at dead of night, the girl with the letter for the post, was the last girl on
God's wide earth whom I should have chosen thus to encounter - a
midnight intruder in the very house where I had been reluctantly
received on her account!
I forgot Raffles. I forgot the new and unforgivable grudge I had against
him now. I forgot his very hand across my mouth, even before he paid
me the compliment of removing it. There was the only girl in all the
world: I had eyes and brains for no one and for nothing else. She had
neither seen nor heard us, had looked neither to the right hand nor the
left. But a small oak table stood on the opposite side of the hall; it was
to this table that she went. On it was one of those boxes in which one
puts one's letters for the post; and she stooped to read by her candle the
times at which this box was cleared.
The loud clock ticked and ticked. She was standing at her full height
now, her candle on the table, her letter in both hands, and in her
downcast face a sweet and pitiful perplexity that drew the tears to my
eyes. Through a film I saw her open the envelope so lately sealed and
read her letter once more, as though she would have altered it a little at
the last. It was too late for that; but of a sudden she plucked a rose from
her bosom, and was pressing it in with her letter when I groaned aloud.
How could I help it? The letter was for me: of that I was as sure as
though I had been looking over her shoulder. She was as true as
tempered steel; there were not two of us to whom she wrote and sent
roses at dead of night. It was her one chance of writing to me. None
would know that she had written. And she cared enough to soften the
reproaches I had richly earned, with a red rose warm from her own
warm heart. And there, and there was I, a common thief who had
broken in to steal! Yet I was unaware that I had uttered a sound until
she looked up, startled, and the hands behind me pinned me where I
stood.
I think she must have seen us, even in the dim light of the solitary
candle. Yet not a sound escaped her as she peered courageously in our
direction; neither did one of us move; but the hall clock went on and on,
every tick like the beat of a drum to bring the house about our ears,
until a minute must have passed as in some breathless dream. And then

came the awakening - with such a knocking and a ringing at the front
door as brought all three of us to our senses on the spot.
"The son of the house!" whispered Raffles in my ear, as he dragged me
back to the window he had left open for our escape. But as he leaped
out first a sharp cry stopped me at the sill. "Get back! Get back! We're
trapped!"