nd Elinor had a sickening conviction that she had
been drinking. She heard Doyle send her off to bed, his voice angry and
disgusted, and resume his packing, and ten minutes later she heard a
car draw up on the street, and knew that he was off, to begin the
mobilization of his heterogeneous forces.

Ever since she had been able to leave her bed Elinor had been
formulating a plan of escape. Once the door had been left unlocked, but
her clothing had been removed from the room, and then, too, she had
not learned the thing she was waiting for. Now she had clothing, a dark
dressing gown and slippers, and she had the information. But the door
was securely locked.

She had often thought of the window, In the day time it frightened her
to look down, although it fascinated her, too. But at night it seemed
much simpler. The void below was concealed in the darkness, a soft
darkness that hid the hard, inhospitable earth. A darkness one could
fall into and onto.

She was not a brave woman. She had moral rather than physical courage.
It was easier for her to face Doyle in a black mood than the gulf below
the window-sill, but she knew now that she must get away, if she were to
go at all. She got out of bed, and using her crutches carefully moved
to the sill, trying to accustom herself to the thought of going over the
edge. The plaster cast on her leg was a real handicap. She must get it
over first. How heavy it was, and unwieldy!

She found her scissors, and, stripping the bed, sat down to cut and tear
the bedding into strips. Prisoners escaped that way; she had read about
such things. But the knots took up an amazing amount of length. It was
four o'clock in the morning when she had a serviceable rope, and she
knew it was too short. In the end she tore down the window curtains and
added them, working desperately against time.

She began to suspect, too, that Olga was not sleeping. She smelled
faintly the odor of the long Russian cigarettes the girl smoked. She put
out her light and worked in the darkness, a strange figure of adventure,
this middle-aged woman with her smooth hair and lined face, sitting in
her cambric nightgown with her crutches on the floor beside her.

She secured the end of the rope to the foot of her metal bed, pushing
the bed painfully and cautiously, inch by inch, to the window. And in
so doing she knocked over the call-bell on the stand, and almost
immediately she heard Olga moving about.

The girl was co