"Where's father?" he growled, stopping where he was a foot or so from
the door.
I shook my head with a slight gesture and remained looking out.
He brought his cane down on the floor with a thump. "What do you mean
by sitting there staring out of the window like mad and not answering
when I ask you a decent question?"
Still I made no reply.
Provoked beyond endurance, yet held in check by that vague sense of
danger in the air,--which while not amounting to apprehension is
often sufficient to hold back from advance the most daring foot,--he
stood glaring at me in what I felt to be a very ferocious attitude,
but made no offer to move. Instantly I rose and still looking out of
the window, made with my hand what appeared to be a signal to some one
on the opposite side of the way. The ruse was effective. With an oath
that rings in my ears yet, he lifted his heavy cane and advanced upon
me with a bound, only to meet the same fate as his father at the hands
of the watchful detectives. Not, however, before that heavy cane came
down upon my head in a way to lay me in a heap at his feet and to sow
the seeds of that blinding head-ache, which has afflicted me by spells
ever since. But this termination of the affair was no more than I had
feared from the beginning; and indeed it was as much to protect Mrs.
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