The Purchase Price eBook

Emerson Hough
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 345 pages of information about The Purchase Price.

The Purchase Price eBook

Emerson Hough
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 345 pages of information about The Purchase Price.

But now it came again, that was it—­it was a footfall.  It approached along the hall, paused at the barricaded door.  It was there outside, stopping.  She heard a breath drawn.  The knob was tried, silently at first, then with greater force.  “Who is there?” she quavered.  “Who is there?” she repeated.  No answer came.

“Jeanne!” she cried aloud.  “Oh, Jeanne!  Jeanne!  Sally!”

There was once a sound of a distant door opening.  No voice came.  Outside her own door now was silence.

She could endure no more.  Though it were into flames, she must escape from this place, where came one to claim a property, not a woman; where a woman faced use, not wooing.  God!  And there was no weapon, to assure God’s vengeance now, here, at once.

Half-clad as she was, she ran to the window, and unhesitatingly let herself out over the sill, clutching at the ivy as she did so.  She feared not at all what now was before her.  It is doubtful whether those who spring from a burning building dread the fall—­they dread only that which is behind them.

As she now half-slid from the window, she grasped wildly at the screen of ivy, and as fate would have it caught one of its greater branches.  It held fast, and she swung free from the sill, which now she could never again regain.  She clung desperately, blindly, swung out; then felt the roots of the ivy above her rip free, one after another, far up, almost to the cornice.  Its whole thin ladder broke free from the wall.  She was flung into space.  Almost at that instant, her foot touched the light lattice of the lower story.  The ivy had crawled up the wall face and followed the cornice up and over somewhere, over the edge of the eaves, finding some sort of holding ground.  It served to support her weight at least until she felt the ladder underfoot.  At this in turn she clutched as she dropped lower, but frail and rotten as it was, it supported her but slightly.  The next instant she felt, herself falling.

[Illustration:  She grasped wildly at the screen of ivy.]

She dropped out and down, struck heavily, and had but consciousness enough left to half-rise.  Before her eyes shone scores of little pointed lights.  Then her senses passed away, and all went sweetly, smoothly and soothingly black about her....After ages, there came faint sounds of running feet.  There was a sort of struggle of some sort, it seemed, in her first returning consciousness.  Her first distinct feeling was one of wonder that Dunwody himself should be the first to bend over her, and that on his face there should seem surprise, regret, grief.  How could he feign such things?  She pushed at his face, panting, silent.

Jeanne now was there—­Jeanne, tearful, excited, wringing her hands, offering aid; but in spite of Jeanne, Dunwody raised Josephine in his arms.  As he did so he felt her wince.  Her arm dropped loosely.  “Good God!  It is broken!” he cried.  “Oh, why did you do this?  Why did you?  You poor girl, you poor girl!  And it was all my fault—­my fault!” Then suddenly, “Sally!—­Eleazar!” he cried.

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The Purchase Price from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.