J. COLE. 57

“You will fall and kill yourself,” my sister
said; ‘the space is much wider than you
think.”

But I was determined to try; for if I let
that policeman go out of sight, what horrors
might happen in the twenty minutes before
he would come back.

The idea of one of the girls waking and
calling out, or Joe waking and being shot or
stabbed, gave me a feeling of desperation, as
though I alone could and must save them.

Luckily the house was splendidly built,
every window-sash sliding noiselessly and
easily in its groove. I opened the one near-
est to the hall door steps, and saw that the
stone ledge abutted to within about two feet
of the low balcony of the window; but I
was too nervous to trust myself to spring
across even that distance. At that moment
my sister whispered : —

“JT hear somebody coming up the kitchen
stairs!”

Desperately I cast my eyes round the room
for something to bridge the open space, that
would bear my weight, if only for a mo-