Page:In the Roar of the Sea.djvu/199

Rh even understand her question, so stupified was he by his terrors, and the treatment he had undergone. Judith took the candle from the floor and searched the hall. Nothing was there save Mr. Scantlebray's coat, which he had removed and cast across one of the kegs when he prepared to convey them down to his cellar. Should she take that? She shook her head at the thought. She would not have it said that she had taken anything out of the house, except only— as that was an extreme necessity, the blanket wrapped about Jamie. She looked into the room that opened beyond the cellar door. It was a great bare apartment, containing only a table and some forms. "Jamie!" she said, "we must get away from this place as we are. There is no help for it. Do you not know where your clothes were put?"

He shook his head. He clung to her with both arms, as though afraid, if he held by but one that she would slip away and vanish, as one drowning, clinging to the only support that sustained him from sinking.

"Come, Jamie! It cannot be otherwise!" She set down the candle, opened the door into the yard, and issued forth into the night along with the boy. The clouds had broken, and poured down their deluge of warm thunder rain. In the dark Judith was unable to find her direction at once, she reached the boundary wall where was no door. Jamie uttered a cry of pain.

"What is it, dear?"

"The stones cut my feet."

She felt along the wall with one hand till she touched the jamb, then pressed against the door itself. It was shut. She groped for the lock. No key was in it. She could as little escape from that enclosure as she could enter into it from without. The door was very solid, and the lock big and secure. What was to be done? Judith considered for a moment, standing in the pouring rain through which the lightning flashed obscurely, illumining nothing. It seemed to her that there was but one course open to her, to return and obtain the key from Mr. Obadiah Scantlebray. But it would be no easy matter to induce him to surrender it. "Jamie! will you remain at the door? Here under the wall is some shelter. I must go back."