The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crisis, Volume 8, by Winston Churchill

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Title: The Crisis, Volume 8

Author: Winston Churchill

Release Date: October 19, 2004 [EBook #5395]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRISIS, VOLUME 8 ***

Produced by David Widger

THE CRISIS

By Winston Churchill

Volume 8.

CHAPTER XII

THE LAST CARD

Mr. Brinsmade and the Doctor were the first to leave the little room
where Silas Whipple had lived and worked and died, Mr. Brinsmade bent
upon one of those errands which claimed him at all times. He took
Shadrach with him. Virginia sat on, a vague fear haunting her,--a fear
for her father's safety. Where was Clarence? What had he seen? Was the
place watched? These questions, at first intruding upon her sorrow,
remained to torture her.

Softly she stirred from the chair where she had sat before the piano, and
opened the door of the outer office. A clock in a steeple near by was
striking twelve. The Colonel did not raise his head. Only Stephen saw her
go; she felt his eyes following her, and as she slipped out lifted hers
to meet them for a brief instant through the opening of the door. Then it
closed behind her.

First of all she knew that the light in the outer office was burning
dimly, and the discovery gave her a shock. Who had turned it down? Had
Clarence? Was he here? Fearfully searching the room for him, her gaze was
held by a figure in the recess of the window at the back of the room. A
solid, bulky figure it was, and, though uncertainly outlined in the
semi-darkness, she knew it. She took a step nearer, and a cry escaped
her.

The man was Eliphalet Hopper. He got down from the sill with a motion at
once sheepish and stealthy. Her breath caught, and instinctively she gave
back toward the door, as if to open it again.

"Hold on!" he said. "I've got something I want to say to you, Miss
Virginia."

His tones seemed strangely natural. They were not brutal. But she
shivered and paused, horrified at the thought of what she was about to
do. Her father was in that room--and Stephen. She must keep them there,
and get this man away. She must n