So she lay for a minute or two, comforting herself with the thought that
all bad and frightening things were left behind in the past, with a door,
double-locked by a golden key, shut forever between it and her. Nothing
disagreeable could happen now. And she was falling asleep once more, when
a slight noise made her heart jump. Then she and her heart both kept very
still, for it seemed that the noise was in the room, not far from her bed.
It came again, and Angela realized that it was at one of the two windows,
both of which were open.
At her request, Kate had pulled the dark blinds halfway up, and Angela
would have laughed at the suggestion that a thief could creep into a room
on the twelfth story. Nevertheless, the night glow of the great city
silhouetted the figure of a man black against the shining of the
half-raised window-panes. It was kneeling on the wide stone sill outside,
and slowly, with infinite caution, was pushing the heavy window-sash up
higher, so that it might be possible to crawl underneath and slip into the
room.
As she stared, incredulous at first, then driven to believe, Angela
guessed how the seeming miracle had been performed. The man had crept
along the cornice which belted the wall, on a level a few feet lower than
the line of the window-sills.
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