Would or would he not bolt his door? On this hung, in the Biblical phraze, all the law and the profits.
He did not. Crouching in my Chamber I saw the light over his transom become blackness, and soon after, on opening his door and speaking his name softly, there was no response. I therfore went in and took my Revolver from his bureau, but there was somthing wrong with the spring and it went off. It broke nothing, and as for Hannah saying it nearly killed her, this is not true. It went into her mattress and wakened her, but nothing more.
Carter wakened up and yelled, but I went out into the hall and said:
"I have taken my Revolver, which belongs to me anyhow. And don"t dare to come out, because you are not dressed."
I then went into my chamber and closed the door firmly, because the servants were coming down screaming and Hannah was yelling that she was shot. I explained through the door that nothing was wrong, and that I would give them a dollar each to go back to bed and not alarm my dear parents. Which they promised.
It was then midnight, and soon after my Familey returned and went to bed. I then went downstairs and put on a dark coat because of not wishing to be seen, and a cap of father"s, wishing to apear as masculine as possable, and went outside, carrying my weapon, and being careful not to shoot it, as the spring seemed very loose. I felt lonely, but not terrafied, as I would have been had I not known the Theif personaly and felt that he was not of a violent tipe.
It was a dark night, and I sat down on the verandah outside the fatal window, which is a French one to the floor, and waited. But suddenly my heart almost stopped. Some one was moving about INSIDE!
I had not thought of an acomplice, yet such there must be. For I could hear, on the hill, the noise of my automobile, which is not good on grades and has to climb in a low geer. How terrable, to, to think of us as betrayed by one of our own MENAGE!
It was indeed a cricis.
However, by getting in through a pantrey window, which I had done since a child for cake and so on, I entered the hall and was able, without a sound, to close and lock the library door. In this way, owing to nails in the windows, I thus had the Gilty Member of our MENAGE so that only the one window remained, and I now returned to the outside and covered it with a steady aim.
What was my horror to see a bag thrust out through this window and set down by the unknown within!
Dear reader, have you ever stood by and seen a home you loved looted, despoiled and deprived of even the egg spoons, silver after-dinner coffee cups, jewels and toilet articals? If not, you cannot comprehand my greif and stern resolve to recover them, at whatever cost.
I by now cared little for the Reward but everything for honor.
The second Theif was now aproaching. I sank behind a steamer chair and waited.
Need I say here that I meant to kill no one? Have I not, in every page, shown that I am one for peace and have no desire for bloodshed? I think I have. Yet, when the Theif apeared on the verandah and turned a pocket flash on the leather bag, which I percieved was one belonging to the Familey, I felt indeed like shooting him, although not in a fatal spot.
He then entered the room and spoke in a low tone.
THE REWARD WAS MINE.
I but slipped to the window and closed it from the outside, at the same time putting in a nail as mentioned before, so that it could not be raised, and then, raising my revolver in the air, I fired the remaining four bullets, forgeting the roof of the verandah which now has four holes in it.
Can I go on? Have I the strength to finish? Can I tell how the Theif cursed and tried to raise the window, and how every one came downstairs in their night clothes and broke in the library door, while carrying pokers, and knives, et cetera. And how, when they had met with no violence but only sulkey silence, and turned on the lights, there was Leila dressed ready to elope, and the Theif had his arms around her, and she was weeping? Because he was poor, although of good familey, and lived in another city, where he was a broker, my familey had objected to him. Had I but been taken into Leila"s confidence, which he considered I had, or at least that I understood, how I would have helped, instead of thwarting! If any parents or older sisters read this, let them see how wrong it is to leave any member of the familey in the dark, especialy in AFFAIRES DE COUER.
Having seen from the verandah window that I had comitted an enor, and unable to bear any more, I crawled in the pantrey window again and went up stairs to my Chamber. There I undressed and having hid my weapon, pretended to be asleep.
Some time later I heard my father open the door and look in.
"Bab!" he said, in a stealthy tone.
I then pretended to wake up, and he came in and turned on a light.
"I suppose you"ve been asleep all night," he said, looking at me with a searching glanse.
"Not lately," I said. "I--wasn"t there a Noise or somthing?"
"There was," he said. "Quite a racket. You"re a sound sleeper. Well, turn over and settle down. I don"t want my little girl to lose her Beauty Sleep."
He then went over to the lamp and said:
"By the way, Bab, I don"t mind you"re sleeping in my golf cap, but put it back in the morning because I hate to have to hunt my things all over the place."
I had forgoten to take off his cap!
Ah, well, it was all over, although he said nothing more, and went out.
But the next morning, after a terrable night, when I realized that Leila had been about to get married and I had ruined everything, I found a note from him under my door.
DEAR BAB: After thinking things over, I think you and I would better say nothing about last night"s mystery. But suppose you bring your car to meet me tonight at the station, and we will take a ride, avoiding milk wagons if possible. You might bring your check book, too, and the revolver, which we had better bury in some quiet spot. FATHER.
P. S. I have mentioned to your mother that I am thinking of buying you a small car. VERb.u.m SAP.
The next day my mother took me calling, because if the Servants were talking it was best to put up a bold front, and pretend that nothing had happened except a Burglar alarm and no Burglar. We went to Gray"s and Tom"s grandmother was there, WITHOUT HER CRUCHES.
During the evening I dressed in a pink frock, with roses, and listened for a car, because I knew Tom was now allowed to drive again. I felt very kind and forgiving, because father had said I was to bring the car to our garage and he would buy gasoline and so on, although paying no old bills, because I would have to work out my own Salvation, but buying my revolver at what I paid for it.
But Tom did not come. This I could not beleive at first, because such conduct is very young and imature, and to much like fighting at dancing school because of not keeping step and so on.
At last, Dear Reader, I heard a machine coming, and I went to the entrance to our drive, sliding in the shrubery to surprize him. I did not tremble as previously, because I had learned that he was but human, though I had once considered otherwise, but I was willing to forget.
How happy is the blameless Vestal"s lot!
The World forgeting, by the World forgot.
Pope.
However, the car did not turn into our drive, but went on. And in it were Tom, and that one who I had considered until that time my best and most intimite friend, Jane Raleigh.
SANS fiancee, SANS friend, SANS reward and SANS Allowence, I turned and went back to my father, who was on the verandah and was now, with my mother and sister, all that I had left in the World.
And my father said: "Well, here I am, around as usual. Do you feel to grown-up to sit on my knee?"
I did not.
CHAPTER V
THE G.A.C.
APRIL 9TH. As I am leaving this School to-morrow for the Easter Holadays, I revert to this Dairy, which has not been written in for some months, owing to being a Senior now and carrying a heavy schedule.