The furniture was
out-of-date, and, too, a little in disrepair. It seemed as though there
clung about it the pride and station of other days, a station that it
was finding it hard to maintain in these. And he thought he understood.
It was a fine old family, that of the Milfords of Louisiana, a very
proud old family in the way that it was fine to be proud--proud of its
name, proud that its sons were gentlemen, proud of its loyalty to its
own traditions and standards, a pride that neither condition nor
adversity could mar. And now the diamond pendant was gone! He could well
understand how they had clung to that, and--
He started suddenly. Was he a fool, that he had wasted even a moment in
giving play to his thoughts! Voices were reaching him now from below,
footsteps were sounding from the lower hall, there was a creak upon the
stairs. They were coming!
He had hardly any need for the quick, searching glance he flung around
him--the plan that the Tocsin, had drawn was mapped out vividly in his
mind. He stepped backward softly through half-opened folding doors into
the room in the rear. From this room a door, he knew, opened into the
hallway. His escape, after all, need give him little concern.
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