In the event that anything went wrong with their enterprise, the man would have shot him dead and earned the gratitude and commendation of his associates! There would be no one to question him, no one to say that he had failed in the duty set upon him by the master of the house. He would have been glorified and not crucified by his friends.
Up to the point when he actually passed through the window Sprouse could have justified himself by shooting the would-be rescuer. Up to that point, Barnes was of inestimable value to him; after that,--well, he had proved that he was capable of taking care of himself.
Mr. Dillingford came and pronounced sentence. He informed the rueful thinker that the young lady wanted to see him at once in Miss Thackeray's room.
With a heavy heart he mounted the stairs. At the top he paused to deliberate. Would it not be better to keep her in ignorance? What was to be gained by revealing to her the--But Miss Thackeray was luring him on to destruction. She stood outside the door and beckoned. That in itself was ominous. Why should she wriggle a forefinger at him instead of calling out in her usual free-and-easy manner? There was foreboding-"Is Mr. Barnes coming?" His heart bounded perceptibly at the sound of that soft, eager voice from the interior of the room.
"By fits and starts," said Miss Thackeray critically. "Yes, he has started again."
She closed the door from the outside, and Barnes was alone with the cousin of kings and queens and princes.
"I feared you had deserted me," she said, holding out her hand to him as he strode across the room. S he did not rise from the chair in which she was seated by the window. The lower wings of the old- fashioned shutters were closed except for a narrow strip; light streamed down upon her wavy golden hair from the upper half of the casement. She was attired in a gorgeously flowered dressing-gown; he had seen it once before, draping the matutinal figure of Miss Thackeray as she glided through the hall with a breakfast tray which Miss Tilly had flatly refused to carry to her room: being no servant, she declared with heat.
"I saw no occasion to disturb your rest," he mumbled. "Nothing-- nothing new has turned up."
"I have been peeping," she said, looking at him searchingly. A little line of anxiety lay between her eyes. "Where is Mr. Loeb going, Mr. Barnes?"
He noted the omission of Mr. O'Dowd. "To Hornville, I believe. They stopped for gasoline."