Page:Chesterton - The Club of Queer Trades.djvu/279

The Seclusion of the Old Lady ?" she said. "What did I understand you to say had become of them?"

"They are lying on the floor up-stairs," said Rupert, chuckling, "tied hand and foot."

"Well, that settles it," said the old lady, coming with a kind of bang into her seat again, "I must stop where I am."

Rupert looked bewildered.

"Stop where you are?" he said. "Why should you stop any longer where you are? What power can force you now to stop in this miserable cell?"

"The question rather is," said the old lady, with composure, "what power can force me to go anywhere else?

We both stared wildly at her, and she stared tranquilly at us both.

At last I said, "Do you really mean to say that we are to leave you here?"

"I suppose you don't intend to tie me up," she said, "and carry me off? I certainly shall not go otherwise."

"But, my dear madam," cried out Rupert, in a radiant exasperation, "we heard 255