The pearls were worth far more than the bag, and
the black shadow out there must know that she had many things worth
taking, or it would not be at her window now.
"What can I do?"
Suddenly she thought of a thing she could do; and without stopping to ask
whether there were something else better, she leaned out of bed and
knocked on the door between her room and the next. The door was fastened,
but, rapping with one hand, with the other she slipped back the bolt.
"Quick--quick--help!" she called. "A thief is getting in at my window."
There was a faint click, the switching on of electric light, the swift
pushing back of a bolt, and the door flew open. The shoes she had seen in
the hall had told her the truth. It was the man she expected who stood for
the fifth part of a second in the doorway of her darkened room, then,
lithe and noiseless as an Indian, made for the window. The thief was taken
completely by surprise. When Angela suddenly cried out, he had been in the
act of letting himself down to the floor, by slipping under the
window-sash, raised just high enough for him to squeeze through. He had
half turned on the wide ledge, so as to get his legs through first and
land on his knees; therefore, he was seized at a disadvantage.
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