"Did they drop her out of the window?" I inquired.
"O," said she, "we are building an extension, and there is a ladder
running up to the third floor, and it was by means of that they took
her."
"Indeed! she seems at least to have been a willing victim," I
remarked.
The woman clutched my arm with a grip like iron. "Don't you believe
it," gasped she, stopping me in the street where we were. "I tell you
if what I say is true, and these burglars or whatever they were, did
carry her off, it was an agony to her, an awful, awful thing that will
kill her if it has not done so already. You don't know what you are
talking about, you never saw her--"
"Was she pretty," I asked, hurrying the woman along, for more than one
passer-by had turned their heads to look at us. The question seemed
in some way to give her a shock.
"Ah, I don't know," she muttered; "some might not think so, I always
did; it depended upon the way you looked at her."
For the first time I felt a thrill of anticipation shoot through my
veins. Why, I could not say. Her tone was peculiar, and she spoke in
a sort of brooding way as though she were weighing something in her
own mind; but then her manner had been peculiar throughout. Whatever
it was that aroused my suspicion, I determined henceforth to keep a
very sharp eye upon her ladyship.
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