Chapter 16

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR.

Now all this time, while the tragi-comedy of life was
being played in these three suburban villas, while on a
commonplace stage love and humor and fears and lights and
shadows were so swiftly succeeding each other, and while
these three families, drifted together by fate, were
shaping each other's destinies and working out in their
own fashion the strange, intricate ends of human life,
there were human eyes which watched over every stage of
the performance, and which were keenly critical of every
actor on it. Across the road beyond the green palings
and the close-cropped lawn, behind the curtains of their
creeper-framed windows, sat the two old ladies, Miss
Bertha and Miss Monica Williams, looking out as from a
private box at all that was being enacted before
them. The growing friendship of the three families, the
engagement of Harold Denver with Clara Walker, the
engagement of Charles Westmacott with her sister, the
dangerous fascination which the widow exercised over the
Doctor, the preposterous behavior of the Walker girls and
the unhappiness which they had caused their father, not
one of these incidents escaped the notice of the two
maiden ladies. Bertha the younger had a smile or a sigh
for the lovers, Monica the elder a frown or a shrug for
the elders. Every night they talked over what they had
seen, and their own dull, uneventful life took a warmth
and a coloring from their neighbors as a blank wall
reflects a beacon fire.

And now it was destined that they should experience
the one keen sensation of their later years, the one
memorable incident from which all future incidents should
be dated.

It was on the very night which succeeded the events
which have just been narrated, when suddenly into Monica
William's head, as she tossed upon her sleepless bed,
there shot a thought which made her sit up with a thrill
and a gasp.

"Bertha," said she, plucking at the shoulder of her
sister, "I have left the front window open."

"No, Monica, surely not." Bertha sat up also, and
thrilled in sympathy.

"I am sure of it. You remember I had forgotten to
water the pots, and then I opened the window, and Jane
called me about the jam, and I have never been in the
room since."

"Good gracious, Monica, it is a mercy that we have
not been murdered in our beds. There was a house broken
into at Forest Hill last week. Shall we go down and shut
it?"

"I dare not go down alone, dear, but if you will come
with me. Put on your slippers and dressing-gown. We do
not need a candle. Now, Bertha, we will go down
together."

Two little white patches moved vaguely through the
darkness, the stairs creaked, the door whined, and they
were at the front room window. Monica closed it gently
down, and fastened the snib.

"What a beautiful moon!" said she, looking out. "We
can see as clearly as if it were day. How peaceful and
quiet the three houses are over yonder! It seems quite
sad to see that `To Let' card upon number one. I wonder
how number two will like their going. For my part I
could better spare that dreadful woman at number three
with her short skirts and her snake. But, oh, Bertha,
look! look!! look!!!" Her voice had fallen suddenly to
a quivering whisper and she was pointing to the
Westmacotts' house. Her sister gave a gasp of horror,
and stood with a clutch at Monica's arm, staring in the
same direction.

There was a light in the front room, a slight,
wavering light such as would be given by a small candle
or taper. The blind was down, but the light shone dimly
through. Outside in the garden, with his figure outlined
against the luminous square, there stood a man, his back
to the road, his two hands upon the window ledge, and his
body rather bent as though he were trying to peep in past
the blind. So absolutely still and motionless was he
that in spite of the moon they might well have overlooked
him were it not for that tell-tale light behind.

"Good heaven!" gasped Bertha, "it is a burglar."

But her sister set her mouth grimly and shook her
head. "We shall see," she whispered. "It may be
something worse."

Swiftly and furtively the man stood suddenly erect,
and began to push the window slowly up. Then he put one
knee upon the sash, glanced round to see that all was
safe, and climbed over into the room. As he did so he
had to push the blind aside. Then the two spectators saw
where the light came from. Mrs. Westmacott was standing,
as rigid as a statue, in the center of the room, with a
lighted taper in her right hand. For an instant they
caught a glimpse of her stern face and her white collar.
Then the blind fell back into position, and the two
figures disappeared from their view.

"Oh, that dreadful woman!" cried Monica. "That
dreadful, dreadful woman! She was waiting for him. You
saw it with your own eyes, sister Bertha!"

"Hush, dear, hush and listen!" said her more
charitable companion. They pushed their own window up
once more, and watched from behind the curtains.

For a long time all was silent within the house. The
light still stood motionless as though Mrs. Westmacott
remained rigidly in the one position, while from time to
time a shadow passed in front of it to show that her
midnight visitor was pacing up and down in front of her.
Once they saw his outline clearly, with his hands
outstretched as if in appeal or entreaty. Then suddenly
there was a dull sound, a cry, the noise of a fall, the
taper was extinguished, and a dark figure fled in the
moonlight, rushed across the garden, and vanished amid
the shrubs at the farther side.

Then only did the two old ladies understand that they
had looked on whilst a tragedy had been enacted. "Help!"
they cried, and "Help!" in their high, thin voices,
timidly at first, but gathering volume as they went on,
until the Wilderness rang with their shrieks. Lights
shone in all the windows opposite, chains rattled,
bars were unshot, doors opened, and out rushed friends to
the rescue. Harold, with a stick; the Admiral, with his
sword, his grey head and bare feet protruding from either
end of a long brown ulster; finally, Doctor Walker, with
a poker, all ran to the help of the Westmacotts. Their
door had been already opened, and they crowded
tumultuously into the front room.

Charles Westmacott, white to his lips, was kneeling
an the floor, supporting his aunt's head upon his knee.
She lay outstretched, dressed in her ordinary clothes,
the extinguished taper still grasped in her hand, no mark
or wound upon her--pale, placid, and senseless.

"Thank God you are come, Doctor," said Charles,
looking up. "Do tell me how she is, and what I should
do."

Doctor Walker kneeled beside her, and passed his left
hand over her head, while he grasped her pulse with the
right.

"She has had a terrible blow," said he. "It must
have been with some blunt weapon. Here is the place
behind the ear. But she is a woman of extraordinary
physical powers. Her pulse is full and slow. There is
no stertor. It is my belief that she is merely stunned,
and that she is in no danger at all."

"Thank God for that!"

"We must get her to bed. We shall carry her
upstairs, and then I shall send my girls in to her. But
who has done this?"

"Some robber" said Charles. "You see that the window
is open. She must have heard him and come down, for she
was always perfectly fearless. I wish to goodness she
had called me.

"But she was dressed."

"Sometimes she sits up very late."

"I did sit up very late," said a voice. She had
opened her eyes, and was blinking at them in the
lamplight. "A villain came in through the window and
struck me with a life-preserver. You can tell the police
so when they come. Also that it was a little fat man.
Now, Charles, give me your arm and I shall go upstairs."

But her spirit was greater than her strength, for, as
she staggered to her feet, her head swam round, and she
would have fallen again had her nephew not thrown his
arms round her. They carried her upstairs among them and
laid her upon the bed, where the Doctor watched beside
her, while Charles went off to the police-station, and
the Denvers mounted guard over the frightened maids.

Chapter 16

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