Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/253

 Hurry,” she called after the girl, who was already on her way to her room to get her hat and coat. “We’ll give that filthy beast something to think about—when he comes to-morrow and finds we’ve gone. Once back in New York and⸺” her voice was lost in the retreat to her room.

A few minutes later they extinguished the lamp in the living room and stepped out of the door, closing it carefully, and turning the key in the lock.

“Is there another boat to-night, I wonder,” remarked Jessica anxiously. “It seems to me⸺”

“Not to-night, I think. Miss Jessica,” replied the old woman, “the way I remember these boats. But I think we’ll do better to go to Newport News for the night—stop in one of the hotels there—and take the early morning boat from the Point to Willoughby Spit—he’ll never expect us to do that; in fact, he’ll probably be on his way out here.”

“I wonder where Mr. Morley is now,” remarked the older woman irrelevantly.

“I wonder,” came softly from Jessica. “I’d feel a whole lot safer if he was with us,” she confessed. “Well, come on, Elizabeth,” she said to the old woman, who had been lagging behind. “Let’s go as quickly as we can.”

They stepped out into the black road, lined with shrubbery, rutted and hard, in the early autumn night. Hardly had they gone ten yards when a figure stepped in front of them, appearing silently out of the black bushes like the veriest apparition.

“My goodness gracious!” exclaimed Elizabeth in a voice that was almost a shriek, so sudden had been the appearance of the figure. Jessica did not speak; she had been too frightened, momentarily. Her hand went