The Argosy, Volume XLIV — page 267: what you’re looking at

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

BY THE ENEMY’S WILL. what was the particular inducement which prompted you to break the laws of your country by breaking in here?” Had the girl been dumb she could not have behaved otherwise than she did; her lips moved, but not the faintest sound issued from them. Her eyes were the sentient part of her: they went right and left, as if seek- ing a way of escape. Then a glance at me—and probably: memory of the closed doors—brought to her face a look of such hopeless despair as to make it seem as if the expression had come to stop. I began to get angry with myself{i— lacking the ability to be angry with her—because of the manner in which I was treating the girl. There was the consciousness that | was making a large sized ass of myself. Most certainly I was not behaving as a man should do toward a captured bur- glar. There was positively a feeling of pity growing in me that the girl had been detected! Naturally I tried to reason myself out of that personal shame. I told my- self—as I knew it Teally was—how idiotic was my behavior; how different it would have been had the burglar been of the other gender. “Come,” I said, gathering together some asperity and firmness, and venting the blend in my’ voice, “ tell me. What are you doing here? ” This was the first time I had spoken to her in that particular tone. As the words rang out—full of an emptiness of jocularity—I was conscious that bru- tality was the dominant note in them. The speech affected the girl as if it had been a blow. Staggering, she put her hands behind her to clutch at the back of a chair. It was impossible for her face to grow whiter than it was, but there was born on it a look as of one in mortal terror or deadly pain. Whichever it might be, I could positively have kicked myself for the responsibility of its birth. It seemed—so powerless did she ap- pear—that if she stood swaying there a minute longer she must fall to the ground. So—veiling the sympathy which, for some inexplicable reason, filled me—I pushed her. C; OuUgle 263 She fell into the seat of the chair against which she had been standing. “Sit there.” I spoke as before; still endeavoring to hide my real feelings in a sorry attempt to appear harsh. shall be sure then that you can’t es- cape.” Pulling forward the chair opposite her, and resuming the sarcastic tone with which I had opened up the con- versation, 1 continued: “You are not deaf as well as dumb, are you? I take it that you can hear what I am saying to you—is that so?” Her tongue showed—as if her lips had called out for it to come and moist- en them—but 1t made no noise. By the clenching of her fingers I knew per- fectly well that she heard—and I understood somcthing of the agony she was suffering by reason of the hearing. “You waited till the Inn gates were shut; made entrance here at such an hour as to constitute vour crime bur- glary.” The lawyer in me stepped out and took the floor there. It was not the kind of speech which would ever have occurred to a layman; in -it was en- crusted knowledge: the difference be- tween housebreaking and burglary. ‘For that offense,’ I continued, quoting, ““the punishment is penal servitude for life or for not less than five years, or imprisonment not ex- ceeding two years, with or without hard labor and with or without solitary con- finement.’ “Dost hke the picture? Do you think the game altogether worth the candle? ” No answer. By reason of her silence, anger became victor in the battle of emotions raging within me. In my temper I continued, with less need for masquerade: “You are adding insult to injury by this determined, obstinate silence of yours! Perhaps, as I am unable to make you speak, the gentleman in blue may be more successful. Don’t, when I leave this room, let any wild ideas of escape blind you to the hopelessness of an attempt. ‘“‘ We are three stories high, and even if you can get that window open—TI haven’t been able to myself, the paint GOHMGOOo a SS (GO) awa