Page:Stanwood Pier--Harding of St Timothys.djvu/86



HE keeper of the Pie House seemed almost as much agitated as the boys.

"Keep still! Keep still!" he adjured them. "It's the doctor come to see my sick wife."

The boys were all crouching in corners and squatting on the floor to get below the level of the very low window-sill in front of which the approaching doctor must pass. The keeper of the Pie House slipped out into the hall and closed the door behind him. Albree, who was nearest, reached up and turned the key in the lock.

They all remained quite motionless, none of them even daring to glance up at the windows. They crouched with lowered heads, on the chance that if Doctor Vincent should look in he might not recognize them.

"We must n't move. In this rattletrap of a house the least sound will be heard," Frank Windsor warned them in a whisper.