"I'll come down." His steps descended the noisy stairs rapidly; the door creaked.

Then voices began again outside the house, an indistinct mumble, rising to one sharp height in an exclamation.
Almost at once steps again sounded on the stairs, but softly now.

Bard went quietly to the door, locked it, and stole back to the window.

Below it extended the roof of a shed, joining the main body of the house only a few feet under his window and sloping to what could not have been a dangerous distance from the ground.

He raised the window-sash.
Yet he waited, something as he had waited for Sally Fortune to speak earlier in the night, with a sense of danger, but a danger which thrilled and delighted him.