Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-07-01

| seems very comfortaDle. IL s pity 10
rouse her"
/ Here the prisoner in the furnace
room broke out afresh. 1t sounded as
though he had taken a lump Of coal
and was attacking the lock. Mr.. Har-
bison followed the noise, and I could
hear him arguing, not gently.
Another sound" he finished" and
you don't get out of here at all, unless
you crawl up the furnace pipe!'
When he came back. Bella was rous-
ing. She lifted her head with her eyes
shut and then opened them one at
time, blinked, and sat up. She didn't
see him at first.
You wretch" she said ungrateful-
ly, after she had yawned. DO you
know what time it is? And that"
Then she saw Mr.. HARRISON and sat
staring at him.
| This is Mr.. Harbison," said to her
hastily. "He-he came with Anne and
Dal and-he is shut in, too"
| BY that time Bella had seen how
handsome he was, and she took
hair-pin out of her mouth, and arched
her eyebrows, which was always
Bella's best pose.
| "I am Miss Knowles" she said
sweetly (of course, the court had given
her back her name), land l stopped in
tonight, thinking the house was empty,
to see about "a butler. Unfortunate
| tina inc q
that time, and-here l am. Surely
there can not be any harm in helping
me to get out?" pleading tone0 II have
not been exposed to any contagion, and
| in the exhausted state Of my health the
confinement would be positively dam
| gerous."
She rolled her eyes at him, and /
could see she was making an impress
sion. Of course she was free. She
had a perfect right to marry again, but
will say this: Bella is a lot better
looking by electric light than she is the
next morning.
The upshot of it was that the gentle
man who built bridges and looked down
| OH SOClcly ilolli q ioiNs, iNiiNts P''%
Gle agreed to help one of the most
cleaning members Of the aforesaid So
ciety to outwit the law.
| 1t took about fifteen minutes to quiet
the policeman Nobody ever knew what
Mr.. HARRISON did to him, but for twen-
| flour hours he was quite tractable.
He changed after that, but that comes
later in the story. Anyhow, the Har-
bison man went upstairs and came
down with a Bagdad curtain and
cushion to match. and took them into
the furnace room, and came out and
locked the door behind him, and then
we were ready for Bella's escape.
But there were four special officers
and three reporters watching the house,
as a result of Max Reeds idiocy. Once.
after trying all the other windows and
| finding them guarded, we discovered
| a little bit of hole in an out-of-the-
| way corner that looked like ventila-
tor and was covered with heavy wire
screen. No prisoners ever dug their
way out of a dungeon with more ener-
| gy than that with which we attacked
that screen, hacking at it with kitchen
knives, whispering like conspirators.
| being scratched with the ragged edges
of the wire, frozen with the cold air one
minute and boiling with excitement the
next. And when the wire was cut, and
| Bella had rolled her coat up and
thrust it through, and was standing on
a chair ready to follow, something out
side that had looked like barrel
| moved and said, "Oh, l wouldn't do
that if were you. 1t would be certain
to be undignified, and probably it
would be unpleasant-later."
We coaxed and pleaded and tried to
| bribe, and that happened, as it turned
out, to be one of the worst things we
| had to endure. For the whole conVer-
sation came out the next afternoon In
| the paper, with the most awful draw
ings, and the reporter said it was the
| flashing of the jewels we wore that
| first attracted his attention. And that
| brings me back to the robbery.
For when we had crept back to the
kitchen, and Bella was fumbling for
her handkerchief to cry into and the
HARRISON man was trying to apologize
| for the language he had used to the re-
porter, and | was on the verge of a
nervous chill-well, it was then that
Bella forgot all about crying and
| jumped and held out her arm.
MY diamond bracelet" she screech-
ed. Look. I've lost it."
Well, we went over every inch of
| that basement, until | knew every
| crack in the flooring, every spot on the
| cement. And Bella was nasty, and said
that she had never seen that part OF
| the house in such condition, and that
| if had acted like sane person and
put her out, when she had no business
there at all, she would have had her
| freedom and her bracelet, and that if
we were playing a joke on her (as IL
we felt like joking) we would please
| give her the bracelet and let her go
| and die in a corner; she felt very
queer.
| At half-past four o'clock we gave up.
IT'S gone" l said. Il don't believe
you wore it here. No one could have
taken it. There wasn't soul in this
part of the house, except the policeman
and he's locked in."
At five o'clock we put her to sleep
| in the den. She was in a fearful tenn
| per, and / was glad enough to be able
to shut the door on her. Tom Harbi-
son-that was his name-helped me to
creep upstairs, and wanted to get me
a glass of ale to make me sleep. But
| said it would be Of no use, as / had
to get up and get the breakfast. The
last thing he said was that the po-
liceman seemed above the average in
intelligence, and perhaps we could
train him to do plain cooking and dish
washing.
| did not go to sleep at once. / lay
on the chintZ-covered divan in Bella's
dressing room and stared at the pict-
| IRE of her with the ViOletS underneath