This was a
particularly nervy go. A young professor and his young wife had a suite
of rooms in this house; it was moonlight, and a certain owl-eyed proctor
was pretty sure to pass not far away; but if they hurried they thought
they could send a man up and get away without being caught.
Buckley was to get in the window, which was open, it being a warm night,
the others were to hustle away with the ladder, and wait for him at a
street several blocks distant. There was no doubt but that Valiant would
have to come with him.
Buckley climbed up, got one foot over the sill, and was in the room. He
leaned out and raised his hand. Silently the ladder disappeared. He
turned and started across the room; when a soft voice said, "Is that
you, dear?"
Then before all the blood in his body had time to freeze, he stepped out
of the moonlight into the shadow and whispered, "Shsss!" Instinct made
him do this.
Across the silence the soft voice came again, "Oh, I'm not asleep. But
why did you stay so long, Guy dear?"
Buckley heard the squeaking of a bed-spring and as his knees stiffened
he spied coming toward him something white with two black streaks
hanging half way down, which as the thing came into the moonlight, he
saw to be long braids of dark hair.
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