to run down the little stairs again, when, to her horror, she heard rough voices in the parlour below, and the sound of oaths as the men called one to another in their hasty search.
"'Tisn't here! There's nothing here worth laying hands on. They must have hid it somewhere. Let's be off upstairs. Here's another staircase. Let's see where that leads to!"
Charlotte darted back into her room again, and drew the little bolt across it. But that would only give her a moment's respite, she knew. One or two heavy blows would bring the door crashing inwards; and what then? She could not fly out by the other one, down the main staircase, without encountering the man on guard at the hall-door. The sight of her precious package would be certain to attract their instant attention, and they had threatened with death all who strove to resist their project of robbery.
But if she were to give up the valuables? Then she might well escape. They had no personal quarrel with her; and nobody had told her to constitute herself the guard of the family property. For one brief instant, Charlotte hesitated; then, with a snort of contempt at her own cowardly thought, she dashed open the window, threw her precious package down into the garden beneath, and herself vaulted lightly after it.
