Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/202

 and again on the ice. She had no breath with which to argue the question. She simply kept on pulling—and pulling—and at last they reached the open doorway.

There a draught of fresh air heartened them. With a great lungful of it Mehitable made short work of getting him to the head of the crazy stairs. And then the accident happened! She took one step too many! A moan, a struggle for balance and her own weight tore her arms away from her burden, so that she plunged backward down the stairs.

Anthony Freeman, his back still turned to the stairs, sat petrified for a few seconds; but the fire in that near-by room did not allow him time to despair. He swung himself around as though on a pivot, so that his bound feet were upon the steps, then, like a child at play, he bumped himself rapidly to the foot where Mehitable, curled up in a heap, lay silent.

He looked up at the fire which, encouraged by the draught from the rear door Hawtree had left open, was now grinning at him through the banisters on the second floor. It must have devoured the pallet in the prison room and had burst out the door, running along a strip of old carpet left by some former tenant. How long, wondered the young man dully, would it take to come down the stairs?