The Argonauts of North Liberty. Bret Harte
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clasped in a passionate embrace; then there was a sudden collapse of the light and a dull jar. The front door had swung to.
With a desperate bound she darted into the passage and through the hall, dragging him by the hand, and threw the front door open. Without, the street was silent and empty.
“Go,” she whispered frantically.
Demorest passed quickly down the steps and disappeared. At the same moment a voice came from the banisters of the landing above. “Who’s there?”
“It’s I, mother.”
“I thought so. And it’s like Edward to bring you and sneak off in that fashion.”
Mrs. Blandford gave a quick sigh of relief. Demorest’s flight had been mistaken for her husband’s habitual evasion. Knowing that her mother would not refer to the subject again, she did not reply, but slowly mounted the dark staircase with an assumption of more than usual hesitating precaution, in order to recover her equanimity.
The clocks were striking eleven when she left her mother’s house and re-entered her own. She was surprised to find a light burning in the kitchen, and Ezekiel, their hired man, awaiting her in a dominant and nasal key of religious and practical disapprobation. “Pity you wern’t tu hum afore, ma’am, considerin’ the doins that’s goin’ on in perfessed Christians’ houses arter meetin’ on the Sabbath Day.”
“What’s the difficulty now, Ezekiel?” said Mrs. Blandford, who had regained her rigorous precision once more under the decorous security of her own roof.
“Wa’al, here comes an entire stranger axin for Squire Blandford. And when I tells he warn’t tu hum—”
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