FLIGHT


The half-expected had happened; bag and baggage had led his pursuers
hither; the fellow could now go back and report. After his bath, before
lying down, John Steele had partly dressed in the garments laid out for
him; now he threw the dressing-gown from his shoulders and hastily put
on the rest of his clothes. He felt now only the need for action--to do
what? Impatience was capped by the realization of his own impotence;
Rosemary Villa was, no doubt, at that very moment, subjected to a close
espionage. He heard the man-servant in the garden, and unable to
restrain a growing restlessness to know the worst, Steele mounted the
stairs to the attic.

From the high window there he could see, around a curve in the Row, a
loitering figure; in the other direction a neighboring house concealed
the byway, but he could reasonably conclude that some one also sauntered
there, sentinel at that end of the street. Quickly coming down to the
second story, he began cautiously to examine from the windows the
situation of the house, in relation to adjoining grounds and neighboring
dwellings.

To the right, the top of the high wall shone with the customary broken
bits of glass; the rear defenses glistened also in formidable fashion.
He noted, however, several places where this safeguard against unwonted
invasion showed signs of deterioration; in one or two spots the jagged
fragments had been broken, or had fallen off. These slight breaks in the
continuity of irregular, menacing glass bits, he fixed in mind by a
certain shrub or tree. Against the rear wall, which was of considerable