He leapt to his feet, trembling and sweating. His hands, shaking as if
smitten with a sudden palsy, went to his pockets--he tore off his coat
and turned his pockets out, as if touch and feeling were not to be
believed, and his eyes must see that there was really nothing there.
Then he snatched up the papers on the floor and found nothing but
letters, and odd scraps of unimportant memoranda. He stamped his feet on
those things, and began to swear and curse, and finally to sob and
whine. The shock of his discovery had driven all his stupefaction away
by that time, and he knew what had happened. And his whining and sobbing
was not that of despair, but the far worse and fiercer sobbing and
whining of rage and terrible anger. If the woman who had tricked him had
been there he would have torn her limb from limb, and have glutted
himself with revenge. But--he was alone.
And presently, after moving around his prison more like a wild beast
than a human being, his senses having deserted him for a while, he
regained some composure, and glanced about him for means of escape. He
went to the door and tried it. But the old, substantial oak stood firm
and fast--nothing but a crow-bar would break that door. And so he turned
to the mullioned window, set in a deep recess.
He knew that it was thirty or forty feet above the level of the
ground--but there was much thick ivy growing on the walls of Normandale
Grange, and it might be possible to climb down by its aid.
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