The House of the Whispering Pines | Page 9

it but little used. I could easily
escape and when the morrow came--but it was the present I must think
of now, this hour, this moment. How came I to stay so long! In feverish
haste, I began to throw the pillows back over the quiet limbs, the
accusing face. Shudderingly I hid those eyes (I understood their strange
protuberance now) and recklessly bent on flight, was half way across
the floor when my feet were stayed--I wonder that my reason was not
unseated--by a sudden and tremendous attack on the great door below,
mingled with loud cries to open which ran thundering through the
house, calling up innumerable echoes from its dead and hidden corners.
It was the police. The wild night, the biting storm had been of no avail.
An alarm had reached headquarters, and all hope of escape on my part
was at an end. Yet because at such crises instinct rises superior to
reason, I blew out the candle and softly made my way into the hall. I
had remembered a window opening over a shed at the head of the
kitchen staircase. I could reach it from this rear hall by just a turn or
two, and once on that shed, a short leap would land me on the ground;
after which I could easily trust to the storm to conceal my flight across
the open golf-links. It was worth trying at least; anything was better
than being found in the house with my murdered betrothed.
I had no reason to think that I was being sought, or that my presence in
this building was even suspected. It might well be that the police were
even ignorant of the tragedy awaiting them across the threshold of the
door they seemed intent on battering down. The gleam of a candle
burning in this closed-up house, or even the tale told by the rising
smoke, may have drawn them from the road to investigate. Such
coincidences had been. Such untoward happenings had misled people
into useless self-betrayal. My case was too desperate for such weakness.
Flight at this moment might save all; I would at least attempt it. The
door was shaking on its hinges; these intruders seemed determined to

enter.
With a spring I reached the window by which I hoped to escape, and
quickly raised it. A torrent of snow swept in, covering my face and
breast in a moment. It did something more: it cleared my brain, and I
remembered my poor horse standing in this blinding gale under cover
of the snow-packed pines. Every one knew my horse. I could commit
no greater folly than to flee by the rear fields while such a witness to
my presence remained in full view in front. With the sensation of a
trapped animal, I reclosed the window and cast about for a safe corner
where I could lie concealed until I learned what had brought these men
here and how much I really had to fear from their presence.
I had but little time in which to choose. The door below had just given
way and a party of at least three men were already stamping their feet
free from snow in the hall. I did not like the tone of their voices, it was
too low and steady to suit me. I had rather have heard drunken cries or
a burst of wild hilarity than these stern and purposeful whispers. Men
of resolution could have but one errand here. My doom was closing
round me. I could only put off the fatal moment. But it was better to do
this than to plunge headlong into the unknown fate awaiting me.
I knew of a possible place of concealment. It was in the ballroom not
far from where I stood. I remembered the spot well. It was at the top of
a little staircase leading to the musicians' gallery. A balustrade guarded
this gallery, supported by a boarding wide enough to hide a man lying
behind it at his full length. If the search I was endeavouring to evade
was not minute enough to lead them to look behind this boarding, it
would offer me the double advantage of concealment and an
unobstructed view of what went on in the hall, through the main
doorway opening directly opposite. I could reach this ballroom and its
terminal gallery without going around to this door. A smaller one
communicated directly with the corridor in which I was then lurking,
and towards this I now made my way with all the precaution suggested
by my desperate situation. No man ever moved more lightly. The shoes
which I had taken off in the lower hall were yet in my hand. I had
caught them up after replacing the cushions on