The Argosy, September 1915 — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

234 The sound of the bell echoed in the gloom of the house and flung itself boisterously through the open window into the astonished and dismayed ears of Miss Chalmers. step and raised her hands protecting- ly in front of her. “A burglar-alarm!” she cried. The din was appalling. It seemed to grow steadily in volume. Miss Chal- mers was not truly frightened, but she was thoroughly amazed and startled. She was incontinently hurled from her pedestal of calm assurance. For five seconds she hesitated. The bell boomed on. She stepped close to the window, placed her hands upon the sill, and leaned inward. From some- where above she heard a heavy foot- step, then a medley of sleepy voices. She turned and ran. She was dimly conscious in her pre- cipitate retreat that, mingled with the clanging of the gong, there was another sound—a rattling of something on the porch floor. But it was not a pro- pitious moment for investigation. ‘Around the corner of the porch she fled, upsetting a wicker table and scat- tering its burden of magazines. From its resting-place at the front door she scooped up her satchel. Down the steps to the lawn she leaped recklessly and then across the space of level sward., Her skirt was not fashioned for run- ning.. With one hand she swept it up to her knees, a maneuver which added perhaps a knot to her speed. Give her a fair chance and Miss Chalmers was an excellent runner. She could even invest running with a certain stateli- ness and dignity—but not on this occa- - gion. | Somebody had left a rocking-chair on the Witherbee lawn. She had not observed it when she approached the house, but now she fell over it. It bumped her knee cruelly, in addition to depositing her at full length upon the grass. Within a second she was on her feet again, flaming with anger. She groped She fell back a’ THE ARGOSY. for her fallen satchel, recovered it, and ran on toward the shelter of the trees. At the edge of the trees she paused and looked back. Lights were moving in the windows of Witherbee House. She heard voices, some shrill with alarm. Again she turned and fled. Just why. Miss Chalmers ran away from the haven of refuge she had been so long in reaching she could not clear- ly have explained. She was flurried in mind, yet not to such an extent as to dim the fact that her conduct was quite illogical. For fifteen minutes she had been trying to rouse the house; now that she had succeeded, she was in flight. In among the trees she hesitated again. ‘The simple and obvious thing to do was to walk straight back and announce herself. After that she would be in bed in ten minutes. But they might laugh. In fact, it was a certainty they would laugh. The alarm, the silly panic of a resolute lady, the chair on the lawn, her gown—oh, it was impossible. She ran once more, dodging among the trees and praying that she might find a path. Presently she felt the gravel under her feet and followed the trail until it brought her back to the wharf, where her trunks crouched like black monsters in the faint light of the lantern. Here she paused to recover breath while she listened. Through the little wood that had oncé seemed so dense she saw a glim- mering of lanterns passing to and fro. “Tam not frightened!” panted Miss Chalmers hotly. “ Lam merely a fool! ‘Yes—a complete fool! But they'll not find me—not now! Not for anything in the world! Ill go back; I'll find some way. I won’t stay on this island. The whole thing is perfectly beastly and absurd!” The moving lanterns among the trees seemed to be coming nearer. Men were calling to each other. She could hear footsteps on the gravel path. There was no concealment on the EOPNICLOOOKS (EO)