"Oh, dear, dear! I do
hope the police will catch some one soon. I'm sure they're doing their
best, but really--!"
Rachel bent with confident intimacy over the old lady's shoulder, and
they read the burglary column together, Rachel interrupting herself
for an instant to pick up Mrs. Maldon's ball of black wool which had
slipped to the floor. The _Signal_ reporter had omitted none of
the classic _cliches_ proper to the subject, and such words
and phrases as "jemmy," "effected an entrance," "the servant, now
thoroughly alarmed," "stealthy footsteps," "escaped with their booty,"
seriously disquieted both of the women--caused a sudden sensation of
sinking in the region of the heart. Yet neither would put the secret
fear into speech, for each by instinct felt that a fear once uttered
is strengthened and made more real. Living solitary and unprotected
by male sinews, in a house which, though it did not stand alone, was
somewhat withdrawn from the town, they knew themselves the ideal prey
of conventional burglars with masks, dark lanterns, revolvers, and
jemmies. They were grouped together like some symbolic sculpture, and
with all their fortitude and common sense they still in unconscious
attitude expressed the helpless and resigned fatalism of their sex
before certain menaces of bodily danger, the thrilled, expectant
submission of women in a city about to be sacked.
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