Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/291

 paste for diamonds. Ernest brought food, when he brought the key, but Liane felt too tired and ill to eat, after her weary two days' tramp, in broiling weather.

The next morning passed, however, and Ernest did not appear. Nevertheless Liane did not despair, as he had seemed sincerely repentant, and warned her that there might be some delay in obtaining cash, if he received a cheque for the furniture. Lying on the old couch in the upper room of the Tower, just under the roof, Liane had felt "too tired after her two days' march to care what had happened." Exhausted and faint for lack of food, she slept a good deal, expecting that Ernest would put off coming till after dark. Suddenly she started up from a doze, on hearing two shots, one after the other. They had sounded very close, though she could not be sure whether they had been fired in the Tower or outside. She was so frightened, and her heart thumped so terribly that she was unable to move for a few minutes; but at last she could bear the suspense no longer, and summoned up courage to go downstairs and see what had happened.

After the shots which waked her, she had heard nothing; but the window of the upper room, unlike that on the first floor of the Tower, was unbroken, and closed, therefore she knew that there might have been sounds which failed to reach her ears.

She descended cautiously, and at the foot of the stairs saw the door of the room on the ground floor slightly