Marion Marlowe in Chicago, or, Trapped by a Lunatic — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

pe 16 3 MY QUEEN. if I only dared to call upon Jones to help instant a key grated in the rusty lock, but me! But, no; he is a coward! I proved Marion did not wait. She fled, terror- that at Buffalo!” stricken, toward the window. She closed the slide again and crept over ; to the table. There was a box of matches standing by the lamp, and in a minute she CHAPTER VIII. had the tiny wick blazing, A MANIAC’S REVENGE, A careful glance around the room dis- It was one o'clock in the morning when ‘closed one high window. She could reach it Marion made her leap from the window, but by putting a chair on one of the tables. not a ray of light nor a star was visible. She arranged her mode of escape as deftly A carriage was standing at that minute as possible, then climbed up and opened the before the door of the Sheltering Arms, and sash and looked from the window. Alma Allyn and Miss Ellis were leaning It was twenty feet from. the ground, at from its windows. : the nearest calculation, and below was dark- A moment later Dr. Brookes and Bert ness, deep and impenetrable. Jackson came down the hospital steps, and It was evidently the alley through which in the light of the carriage lamps their faces’ she had been led to her prison. But where looked pale and anxious. did it lead to? That was the question. “She hasn’t been here at all.” It was a terrible risk to life and limb, and It was Dr. Brookes who spoke, and the Marion paused in horror before she attempt- young man made no effort to conceal his ed it. anxiety. Hoping, she hardly knew what, she de- | “Then where is she? Oh, Marion! Mar- scended to the floor, extinguished the lamp, ion! Why will you do such things !’’ cried and once*more cautiously opened the slide Miss Allyn, tearfully. in the panel. | “Something has happened; I am sure: of She was just in time to see a hideous sight. it; and, oh, it may be something dreadful!” Four men, all black, vicious-looking fel- “She may have changed her mind and lows, were engaged in a desperate struggle gone back, and we may have missed her,” with the maniac. said Bert; but there was not so much as a As she put her eye to the aperture she trace of cheerfulness in his hopeful sugges- saw them throw him bodily into the alley, — tion. then close and bolt the door behind him. “And Mr. Temple is not there?’ asked The next minute a man, who was evidently Miss Ellis, eagerly. the proprietor of the place, began passing Bert shook his head. around a hat full of folded slips of paper “No, nor any one that looks like him,” he and the rum-crazed fiends seized and opened _ said, disconsolately. “That ‘personal,’ if it them greedily, ~~ meant him, must have been only a trap for A breathless silence ensued as they gazed Marion.” with bleared eyes at the slips; then Bill Jones’ “And she has fallen into it, poor dear,” voice rang out with terrible clearness. sighed Miss Allyn, sorrowfully. “Now, “Whoever gets No. 20 can have the girl! what shall we do next? Where shall we Now, that is perfectly square, men, so let’s look for her?” have no fighting!” There was a moment of deep thought be- Marion caught her breath, and her heart fore any one answered. seemed to stand still. She understood now “Tet me see the note again, please,” said why they had not annoyed her. the doctor, finally. “Tt was about me,” she gasped, as she Alma Allyn took a scrap of paper from staggered from the door. “I have been raf- her glove and handed it to him. It was the ded off to those infamous creatures ¥ note Marion had written her in the dressing- There was a roar from the saloon. She room of the theatre. | had forgotten to close the slide. The next “Have gone to the Sheltering Arms Hos- Gomicbooks.com