Florence winces, and sinks back upon the seat as though unable to sustain an upright position any longer. Every word of his is as gall and wormwood to her, each sentence a reminder—a reproach. Only the other day this man now beside her had accused her of making sure of Sir Adrian's affection before she had any right so to do. Her proud spirit shrinks beneath the cruel taunt he hurls at her.
"You look unusually 'done up,'" he goes on, in a tone of assumed commiseration. "This evening has been too much for you. Acting a part at any time is extremely trying and laborious."
She shrinks still further from him. Acting a part! Is not all her life becoming one dreary drama, in which she acts a part from morning until night? Is there to be no rest for her? Oh, to escape from this man at any price! She rises to her feet.
"Our dance is almost at an end," she says; "and the heat is terrible. I can remain here no longer."
"You are ill," he exclaims eagerly, going to her side. He would have supported her, but by a gesture she repels him.
"If I am, it is you who have made me so," she retorts, with quick passion, for which she despises herself an instant later.
"Nay, not I," he rejoins, "but what my words have unconsciously conveyed to you. Do not blame me. I thought you, as well as every one else here, knew of Adrian's sentiments with regard to Mrs. Talbot."
This is too much for her. Drawing herself up to her full height, Florence casts a glance of anger and defiance in his direction, and, sweeping past him in her most imperious fashion, appears no more that night.
It is an early party, all things considered, and Dora Talbot, going to her room about two o'clock, stops before Florence's door and knocks softly thereon.
"Come in," calls Florence gently.
"I have just stopped for a moment to express the hope that you are not ill, dearest," says smooth-tongued Dora, advancing toward her. "How early you left us! I shouldn't have known how early only that Mr. Dynecourt told me. Are you sure you are not ill?"
"Not in the least, only a little fatigued," replied Florence calmly.
"Ah, no wonder, with your exertions before the dancing commenced, and your unqualified success! You reigned over everybody, darling. Nobody could hope even to divide the honors of the evening with you. Your acting was simply superb."
"Thank you," says Florence, who is not in bed, but is sitting in a chair drawn near the window, through which the moonbeams are flinging their pale rays. She is clad in a clinging white dressing-gown that makes her beauty saint-like, and has all her long hair falling loosely round her shoulders.
"What a charming evening it has been!" exclaims Dora ecstatically, clasping her hands, and leaning her arms on the back of a chair. "I hardly know when I have felt so thoroughly happy." Florence shudders visibly. "You enjoyed yourself, of course?" continues Dora. "Everyone raved about you. You made at least a dozen conquests; one or half a one—" with a careful hesitation in her manner intended to impress her listener—"is as much as poor little insignificant me can expect."
Florence looks at her questioningly.
"I think one really honest lover is worth a dozen others," she says, her voice trembling. "Do you mean me to understand, Dora, that you have gained one to-night?"
Florence's whole soul seems to hang on her cousin's answer. Dora simpers, and tries to blush, but in reality grows a shade paler. She is playing for a high stake, and fears to risk a throw lest it may be ventured too soon.
"Oh, you must not ask too much!" she replies, shaking her blonde head. "A lover—no! How can you be so absurd! And yet I think—I hope—"
"I see!" interrupts Florence sadly. "Well, I will be as discreet as you wish; but at least, if what I imagine be true, I can congratulate you with all my heart, because I know—I know you will be happy."
Going over to Mrs. Talbot, she lays her arms round her neck and kisses her softly. As she does so, a tear falls from her eyes upon Dora's cheek. There is so much sweetness and abandonment of self in this action that Dora for the moment is touched by it. She puts up her hand, and, wiping away the tear from her cheek as though it burns her, says lightly—
"But indeed, my dearest Flo, you must not imagine anything. All is vague. I myself hardly know what it is to which I am alluding. 'Trifles light as air' float through my brain, and gladden me in spite of my common sense, which whispers that they may mean nothing. Do not build castles for me that may have their existence only en Espagne."
"They seem very bright castles," observes Florence wistfully.
"A bad omen. 'All that's bright must fade,' sings the poet. And now to speak of yourself. You enjoyed yourself?"
"Of course—" mechanically.
"Ah, yes; I was glad to see you had made it up with poor Arthur Dynecourt!"
"How?" demands Florence, turning upon her quickly.
"I saw you dancing with him, dearest; I was with Sir Adrian at the time, and from something he said, I think he would be rather pleased if you could bring yourself to reward poor Arthur's long devotion."
"Sir Arthur said that? He discussed me with you?"
"Just in passing, you understand. He told me too that you were somewhat unhappy in the earlier part of the evening, and that he had to stay a considerable time with you to restore you to calmness. He is always so kind, dear Adrian!"
"He spoke of that?" demands Florence, in a tone of anguish. If he had made her emotion a subject of common talk with Mrs. Talbot, all indeed is at an end between them, even that sweet visionary offer of friendship he had made to her. No; she could not submit to be talked about by him, and the woman he loves! Oh, the bitter pang it costs her to say these words to herself! That he now loves Dora seems to her mind beyond dispute. Is she not his confidante, the one in whom he chooses to repose all his secret thoughts and surmises?
Dora regards her cousin keenly. Florence's evident agitation makes her fear that there was more in that tête-à-tête with Sir Adrian than she had at first imagined.
"Yes; why should he not speak of it?" Dora goes on coldly. "I think by his manner your want of self-control shocked him. You should have a greater command over yourself. It is not good form to betray one's feelings to every chance passer-by. Yes; I think Sir Adrian was both surprised and astonished."
"There was nothing to cause him either surprise or astonishment," says Florence haughtily; "and I could well have wished him out of the way!"
"Perhaps I misunderstood him," rejoins Dora artfully. "But certainly he spoke to me of being unpleasantly delayed by—by impossible people—those were his very words; and really altogether—I may be wrong—I believed he alluded to you. Of course, I would not follow the matter up, because, much as I like Sir Adrian, I could not listen to him speaking lightly of you!"
"Of me—you forget yourself, Dora!" cries Florence, with pale lips, but head erect. "Speaking lightly of me!" she repeats.
"Young men are often careless in their language," explains Dora hurriedly, feeling that she has gone too far. "He meant nothing unkind, you may be sure!"
"I am quite sure"—firmly.
"Then no harm is done"—smiling brightly. "And now, good-night, dearest; go to bed instead of sitting there looking like a ghost in those mystical moonbeams."
"Good-night," says Florence icily.
There is something about her that causes Mrs. Talbot to feel almost afraid to approach and kiss her as usual.
"Want of rest will spoil your lovely eyes," adds the widow airily; "and your complexion, faultless as it always is, will not be up to the mark to-morrow. So sleep, foolish child, and gather roses from your slumbers."
So saying, she kisses her hand gayly to the unresponsive Florence, and trips lightly from the room.
CHAPTER V.
Florence, after Dora has left her, sits motionless at her window. She has thrown open the casement, and now—the sleeves of her dressing-gown falling back from her bare rounded arms—leans out so that the descending night-dews fall like a benison upon her burning brow.
She is wrapped in melancholy; her whole soul is burdened with thoughts and regrets almost too heavy for her to support. She is harassed and perplexed on all sides, and her heart is sore for the loss of the love she once had deemed her own.
The moonbeams cling like a halo round her lovely head, her hair falls in a luxuriant shower about her shoulders; her plaintive face is raised from earth, her eyes look heavenward, as though seeking hope and comfort there.
The night is still, almost to oppressiveness. The birds have long since ceased their song; the wind hardly stirs the foliage of the stately trees. The perfume wafted upward from the sleeping garden floats past her and mingles with her scented tresses. No sound comes to mar the serenity of the night, all is calm and silent as the grave.
Yet, hark, what is this? A footstep on the gravel path below arouses her attention. For the first time since Dora's departure she moves, and, turning her head, glances in the direction of the sound.
Bareheaded, and walking with his hands clasped behind him as though absorbed in deep thought, Sir Adrian comes slowly over the sward until he stands beneath her window. Here he pauses, as though almost unconsciously his spirit has led him thither, and brought him to a standstill where he would most desire to be.
The moon, spreading its brilliance on all around, permits Florence to see that his face is grave and thoughtful, and—yes, as she gazes even closer, she can see that it is full of pain and vain longing.
What is rendering him unhappy on this night of all others, when the woman she believes he loves has been his willing companion for so many hours, when doubtless she has given him proofs of her preference for him above all men?
Suddenly lifting his head, Sir Adrian becomes conscious of the face in the window above, and a thrill rushes through him as he recognizes the form of the woman he loves.
The scene is so calm, so hallowed, so full of romance, that both their hearts beat madly for awhile. They are alone; any one still awake within the house is far distant.
Never has she appeared so spiritual, so true and tender; so full of sweetness that is almost unearthly. All pride seems gone from her, and in its place only a gentle melancholy reigns; she looks so far removed from him, sitting there in the purity of her white robes, that, at first, he hesitates to address her. To his excited imagination, she is like an angel resting on its way to the realms above.
At last, however, his heart compelling him, he speaks aloud.
"Florence, you still awake, when all the world is sleeping?"
Her name falling from his lips touches a chord in her breast, and wakes her to passionate life.
"You too," she says in a whisper that reaches his strained ears. There seems to her a subtle joy in the thought that they two of all the household are awake, are here talking together alone in the pale light of the moon.
Yet she is wrong in imagining that no others are up in the house, as his next words tell her.
"It is not a matter of wonder in my case," he responds; "a few fellows are still in the smoking-room. It is early, you know—not yet three. But you—why are you keeping a lonely vigil like this?"
"The moon tempted me to the window," answers Florence. "See how calm she looks riding majestically up there. See"—stretching out her bare white arm until the beams fall full upon it, and seem to change it to purest marble—"does it not make one feel as if all the world were being bathed in its subdued glow?"
A pale tremulous smile widens her lips. Sir Adrian, plucking a tall pale lily growing near him, flings it upward with such an eager aim that it alights upon her window-sill. She sees it. Her fingers close upon it.
"Fit emblem of its possessor," says Adrian softly, and rather unsteadily. "Do you know of what you remind me, sitting there in your white robes? A medieval saint cut in stone—a pure angel, too good, too far above all earthly passion to enter into it, or understand it, and the grief that must ever attend upon it."
He speaks bitterly. It seems to him that she is indeed cold not to have guessed before this the intensity of his love for her. However much she may have given her affection to another, it still seems to him inexpressibly hard that she can have no pity for his suffering. He gazes at her intently. Do the mystic moonbeams deceive him, or are there tears in her great dark eyes? His heart beats quickly. Once again he remembers her emotion of the past evening. He hears again her passionate sobs. Is she unhappy? Are there thorns in her path that are difficult to remove?
"Florence, once again I entreat you to confide in me," he says, after a pause.
"I can not," she returns, sadly but firmly. "But there is one thing I must say to you—think of me as you may for saying it—I am not cold as you seemed to imply a moment since; I am not made of stone; and, alas, the grief you think me incapable of understanding is mine already! You have wronged me in your thoughts. I have here," she exclaims with some vehemence, laying the hand in which she still holds the drooping lily upon her breast, "what I would gladly be without—a heart."
"Nay," says Adrian hastily; "you forget. It is no longer yours, you have given it away."
For an instant she glances at him keenly, while her breath comes and goes with painful quickness.
"You have no right to say so," she murmurs at last.
"No, of course not; I beg your pardon," he says apologetically. "It is your own secret."
"There is no secret," she declares nervously. "None."
"I have offended you. I should not have said that. You will forgive me?" he entreats, with agitation.
"You are quite forgiven;" and, as a token of the truth of her words, she leans a little further out of the window, and looks down at him with a face pale indeed, but full of an unutterable sweetness.
Her beauty conquers all his resolutions.
"Oh, Florence," he whispers in an impassioned tone, "if I only dare to tell you what—"
She starts and lays a finger on her lips, as though to enforce silence.
"Hush!" she says, in trembling accents. "You forget! The hour, the surroundings, have momentarily led you astray. I ought not to have spoken with you. Go! There is nothing you dare to tell me—there is nothing I would wish to hear. Remember your duty to another—and—good-night."
"Stay, I implore you, for one moment," he cries; but she is firm, and presently the curtains are drawn close and he is alone.
Slowly he walks back toward the smoking-room, her last words ringing in his ears—"Remember your duty to another." What other? He is puzzled, but, reaching the window of the room, he dismisses these thoughts from his mind, and determines to get rid of his guests without delay, so as to be able to enjoy a little quiet and calm for reflection.
They are all noisily discussing a suicide that had recently taken place in a neighboring county, and which had, from its peculiar circumstances, caused more than usual interest.
One of the guests to-night is an army-surgeon, and he is giving them an explanation as to how the fatal wound had been inflicted. It appeared at the inquest that the unfortunate man had shot himself in such a peculiar manner as to cause considerable doubt as to whether he had been murdered or had died by his own hand. Evidence, however, of a most convincing nature had confirmed the latter theory.
Captain Ringwood, with a revolver in his hand, is endeavoring to show that the man could not have shot himself, just as Adrian re-enters.
"Be careful with that revolver," he exclaims hastily; "it is loaded!"
"All right, old fellow, I know it," returns Ringwood. "Look here, doctor, if he held it so, how could he make a wound here?"
"Why not? Sir Adrian, take the revolver for a moment, will you?" says the surgeon, anxious to demonstrate his theory beyond the possibility of doubt. "I want to convince Ringwood. Now stand so, and hold the weapon so"—placing it with the muzzle presented in a rather awkward position almost over his heart.
"I thought fellows always put the muzzles of their revolvers in their mouths and blew their brains out when they committed suicide," Ringwood remarks lightly.
"This fellow evidently did not," says the surgeon calmly. "Now, Sir Adrian, you see, by holding it thus, you could quite easily blow yourself to—"
Before he can finish the sentence, there is a sudden confusion of bodies, a jostling as it were, for Arthur Dynecourt, who had been looking on attentively with one foot on a footstool close to Sir Adrian's elbow, had slipped from the stool at this inopportune moment, and had fallen heavily against his cousin.
There is a shout from somebody, and then a silence. The revolver in the scuffle had gone off! Through the house the sharp crack of a bullet rings loudly, rousing many from their slumbers.
Lights can be seen in the passages; terrified faces peep out from half-opened doors. Dora Talbot, coming into the corridor in a pale pink cashmere dressing-gown trimmed with swan's-down, in which she looks the very personification of innocence and youth, screams loudly, and demands hysterically to be informed as to the cause of the unusual noise.
The servants have rushed from their quarters in alarm. Ethel Villiers, with a pale scared face, runs to Florence Delmaine's room, and throws her arms round that young lady as she comes out, pale but composed, to ask in a clear tone what has happened.
As nobody knows, and as Florence in her heart is more frightened than she cares to confess, being aware through Adrian that some of the men are still up in the smoking-room, and fearing that a quarrel had arisen among them, she proposes that they should go to the smoking-room in a body and make inquiries.
Old Lady FitzAlmont, with Lady Gertrude sobbing on her arm, seconds this proposal, and, being a veteran of much distinction, takes the lead. Those following close behind, are glad of this, and hopeful because of it, her appearance being calculated to rout any enemy. The awful character of her dressing-gown and the severity of the nightcap that crowns her martial head would strike terror to the hearts of any midnight marauders. They all move off in a body, and, guided unconsciously by Florence, approach the smoking-room.
Voices loud in conversation can be heard as they draw near; the door is slightly ajar. Florence drawing back as they come quite up to it, the old lady waves her aside, and advances boldly to the front. Flinging wide open the door, she bursts upon the astonished company within.
"Where is he?" she asks, with a dignity that only heightens the attractions of the cap and gown. "Have you secured him? Sir Adrian, where is the constable? Have you sent for him?"
Sir Adrian, whose gaze is fixed upon the fair vision in the trailing white gown standing timidly in the door-way, forgets to answer his interrogator, and the others, taken by surprise, maintain a solemn silence.
"Why this mystery?" demands Lady FitzAlmont sternly. "Where is the miscreant? Where is the man that fired that murderous shot?"
"Here, madame," replies the surgeon dryly, indicating Arthur Dynecourt by a motion of the hand.
"He—who? Mr. Dynecourt?" ejaculates her ladyship in a disappointed tone. "It was all a mistake, then? I must say, Mr. Dynecourt," continues the old lady in an indignant tone, "that I think you might find a more suitable time in which to play off your jokes, or to practice target-shooting, than in the middle of the night, when every respectable household ought to be wrapped in slumber."
"I assure you," begins Arthur Dynecourt, who is strangely pale and discomposed, "it was all an accident—an—"
"Accident! Nonsense, sir; I don't believe there was any accident whatsoever!"
As these words pass the lips of the irascible old lady, several men in the room exchange significant glances. Is it that old Lady FitzAlmont has just put their own thoughts into words?
"Let me explain to your ladyship," says Sir Adrian courteously. "We were just talking about that unfortunate affair of the Stewarts, and Maitland was showing us how it might have occurred. I had the revolver in my hand so"—pointing the weapon toward himself.
"Put down that abominable weapon at once, sir!" commands Lady FitzAlmont, in a menacing tone, largely mingled with abject fear. As she speaks she retreats precipitately behind Florence, thus pushing that young lady to the fore.
"When my cousin unhappily stumbled against me, and the revolver went off," goes on Sir Adrian. "I'm deeply grieved, Lady FitzAlmont, that this should have occurred to disturb the household; but, really, it was a pure accident."
"A pure accident," repeats Arthur, from between his colorless lips.
He looks far more distressed by this occurrence than Sir Adrian, who had narrowly escaped being wounded. This only showed his tenderness and proper feeling, as almost all the women present mutually agreed. Almost all, but not quite. Dora Talbot, for example, grows deadly pale as she listens to the explanation and watches Arthur's ghastly face. What is it like? The face of a murderer?
"Oh, no, no," she gasps inwardly; "surely not that!"
"It was the purest accident, I assure you," protests Arthur again, as though anxious to impress this conviction upon his own mind.
"It might have been a very serious one," says the surgeon gravely, regarding him with a keen glance. "It might have meant death to Sir Adrian!"
Florence changes color and glances at her host with parted lips. Dora Talbot, pressing her way through the group in the door-way, goes straight up to him as if impulsively, and takes his hand in both hers.
"Dear Sir Adrian, how can we be thankful enough for your escape?" she says sweetly, tears standing in her bright blue eyes. She presses his hand warmly, and even raises it to her lips in a transport of emotion. Standing there in the pretty pink dressing-gown that shows off her complexion to perfection, Dora Talbot looks lovely.
"You are very good—very kind," returns Sir Adrian, really touched by her concern, but still with eyes only for the white vision in the door-way; "but you make too much of nothing. I am only sorry I have been the unhappy cause of rousing you from your rosy dreams; you will not thank me to-morrow when there will be only lilies in your cheeks."
The word lily brings back to him his last interview with Florence. He glances hurriedly at her right hand; yes, the same lily is clasped in her fingers. Has she sat ever since with his gift before her, in her silent chamber? Alone—in grief perhaps. But why has she kept his flower? What can it all mean?
"We shall mind nothing, now you are safe," Dora assures him tremulously.
"I think I might be shown some consideration," puts in Arthur, trying by a violent effort to assert himself, and to speak lightly. "Had anything happened, surely I should have been the one to be pitied. It would have been my fault, and, Mrs. Talbot, I think you might show some pity for me." He holds out his hand, and mechanically Dora lays her own in it.
But it is only for an instant, and she shudders violently as his touch meets hers. Her eyes are on the ground, and she can not bring herself to look at him. Drawing her fingers hurriedly from his, she goes to the door and disappears from view.
In the meantime, Sir Adrian, having made his way to Florence, points to the lily.
"You have held it ever since?" he asks, in a low tone. "I hardly hoped for so much. But you have not congratulated me, you alone have said nothing."
"Why need I speak? I have seen you with my own eyes. You are safe. Believe me, Sir Adrian, I congratulate you most sincerely upon your escape."
Her words are cold, her eyes downcast. She is deeply annoyed with herself for having carried the lily into his presence here. The very fact of his having noticed it and spoken to her about it has shown her how much importance he has attached to her doing so. What will he think of her. He will doubtless picture her to himself sitting weeping and brooding over a flower given to her by a man who loves her not, and to whom she has given her love unsolicited.
Her marked coldness so oppresses him that he steps back, and does not venture to address her again. It occurs to him that she is reserved because of Arthur's presence.
Presently, Lady FitzAlmont, marshaling her forces anew, carries them all away to their rooms, soundly rating the sobbing Lady Gertrude for her want of self-control.
The men too, shortly afterward disperse, and one by one drift away to their rooms. Captain Ringwood and Maitland the surgeon being the last to go.
"Who is the next heir to the castle?" asks the latter musingly, drumming his fingers idly on a table near him.
"Dynecourt, the fellow who nearly did for Sir Adrian this evening!" replies Ringwood quietly.
"Ah!"
"It would have meant a very good thing for Arthur if the shot had taken effect," says Ringwood, eying his companion curiously.
"It would have meant murder, sir!" rejoins the surgeon shortly.
CHAPTER VI.
"Dear Sir Adrian," says Dora Talbot, laying down her bat upon a garden-chair, and forsaking the game of tennis then proceeding to go forward and greet her host, "where have you been? We have missed you so much. Florence"—turning to her cousin—"will you take my bat, dearest? I am quite tired of trying to defeat Lord Lisle."
Lord Lisle, a middle-aged gentleman of sunburned appearance, looks unmistakably delighted at the prospect of a change in the game. He is married; has a large family of promising young Lisles, and a fervent passion for tennis. Mrs. Talbot having proved a very contemptible adversary, he is charmed at this chance of getting rid of her.
So Florence, vice Dora retired, joins the game, and the play continues with unabated vigor. When however Lord Lisle has scored a grand victory, and all the players declare themselves thoroughly exhausted and in need of refreshment, Sir Adrian comes forward, and walks straight up to Miss Delmaine, to Dora's intense chagrin and the secret rage of Arthur Dynecourt.
"You have often asked to see the 'haunted chamber,'" he says; "why not come and visit it now? It isn't much to see, you know; but still, in a ghostly sense, it is, I suppose, interesting."
"Let us make a party and go together," suggests Dora, enthusiastically clasping her hands—her favorite method of showing false emotion of any kind. She is determined to have her part in the programme, and is equally determined that Florence shall go nowhere alone with Sir Adrian.
"What a capital idea!" puts in Arthur Dynecourt, coming up to Miss Delmaine, and specially addressing her with all the air of a rightful owner.
"Charming," murmurs a young lady standing by; and so the question is settled.
"It will be rather a fatiguing journey, you know," says Captain Ringwood, confidentially, to Ethel Villiers. "It's an awful lot of stairs; I've been there, so I know all about it—it's worse than the treadmill."
"Have you been there too?" demands Miss Ethel saucily, glancing at him from under her long lashes.
"Not yet," answers the captain, with a little grin. "But, I say, don't go—will you?"
"I must; I'm dying to see it," replies Ethel. "You needn't come, you know; I dare say I shall be able to get on without you for half an hour or so."
"I dare say you could get on uncommonly well without me forever," retorts the captain rather gloomily. To himself he confesses moodily that this girl with the auburn hair and the blue eyes has the power of taking the "curl out of him" whensoever she wishes.
"I believe you are afraid of the bogies hidden in this secret chamber, and so don't care to come," says Miss Villiers tauntingly.
"I know something else I'm a great deal more afraid of," responds the gallant captain meaningly.
"Me?" she asks innocently, but certainly coquettishly. "Oh, Captain Ringwood"—in a tone of mock injury—"what an unkind speech! Now I know you look upon me in the light of an ogress, or a witch, or something equally dreadful. Well, as I have the name of it, I may as well have the gain of it, and so—I command you to attend me to the 'haunted chamber.'"
"You order—I obey," says the captain. "'Call and I follow—I follow, though I die!'" After which quotation he accompanies her toward the house in the wake of Dora and Sir Adrian, who has been pressed by the clever widow into her service.
Florence and Arthur Dynecourt follow them, Arthur talking gayly, as though determined to ignore the fact that he is thoroughly unwelcome to his companion; Florence, with head erect and haughty footsteps and eyes carefully averted.
Past the hall, through the corridor, up the staircase, through the galleries, along more corridors they go, laughing and talking eagerly, until they come at last to an old and apparently much disused part of the house.
Traversing more corridors, upon which dust lies thickly, they come at last to a small iron-bound door that blocks the end of one passage.
"Now we really begin to get near to it," says Sir Adrian encouragingly, turning, as he always does, when opportunity offers, to address himself solely to Florence.
"Don't you feel creepy-creepy?" asks Ethel Villiers, with a smothered laugh, looking up at Captain Ringwood.
Then Sir Adrian pushes open the door, revealing a steep flight of stone steps that leads upward to another door above. This door, like the lower one, is bound with iron.
"This is the tower," explains Sir Adrian, still acting as cicerone to the small party, who look with interest around them. Mrs. Talbot, affecting nervousness, clings closely to Sir Adrian's arm. Indeed she is debating in her own mind whether it would be effective or otherwise to subside into a graceful swoon within his arms. "Yonder is the door of the chamber," continues Sir Adrian. "Come, let us go up to it."
They all ascend the last flight of stone stairs; and presently their host opens the door, and reveals to them whatever mysteries may lie beyond. He enters first, and they all follow him, but, as if suddenly recollecting some important point, he turns, and calls loudly to Captain Ringwood not to let the door shut behind him.
"There is a peculiar spring in the lock," he explains a moment later; "and, if the door slammed to, we should find it impossible to open it from the inside, and might remain here prisoners forever unless the household came to the rescue."
"Oh, Captain Ringwood, pray be careful!" cries Dora falteringly. "Our very lives depend upon your attention!"
"Miss Villiers, do come here and help me to remember my duty," says Captain Ringwood, planting his back against the open door lest by any means it should shut.
The chamber is round, and has, instead of windows, three narrow apertures in the walls, through which can be obtained a glimpse of the sky, but of nothing else. These apertures are just large enough to admit a man's hand. The room is without furniture of any description, and on the boards the dark stains of blood are distinctly visible.
"Dynecourt, tell them a story or two," calls out Ringwood to Sir Adrian. "They won't believe it is veritably haunted unless you call up a ghost to frighten them."
But they all protest in a body that they do not wish to hear any ghost stories, so Sir Adrian laughingly refuses to comply with Ringwood's request.
"Are we far from the other parts of the house?" asks Florence at length, who has been examining some writing on the walls.
"So far that, if you were immured here, no cry, however loud, could penetrate the distance," replies Sir Adrian. "You are as thoroughly removed from the habitable parts of the castle as if you were in the next county."
"How interesting!" observes Dora, with a little simper.
"The servants are so afraid of this room that they would not venture here even by daylight," Sir Adrian goes on. "You can see how the dust of years is on it. One might be slowly starved to death here without one's friends being a bit the wiser."
He laughs as he says this, but, long afterward, his words come back to his listeners' memories, filling their breasts with terror and despair.
"I wonder you don't have this dangerous lock removed," says Captain Ringwood. "It is a regular trap. Some day you'll be sorry for it."
Prophetic words!
"Yes; I wish it were removed," responds Florence, with a strange quick shiver.
Sir Adrian laughs.
"Why, that is one of the old tower's greatest charms," he says. "It belongs to the dark ages, and suggests all sorts of horrible possibilities. This room would be nothing without its mysterious lock."
At this moment Dora's eyes turn slowly toward Arthur Dynecourt. She herself hardly knows why, at this particular time, she should look at him, yet she feels that some unaccountable fascination is compelling her gaze to encounter his. Their eyes meet. As they do so, Dora shudders and turns deadly pale. There is that in Arthur Dynecourt's dark and sullen eyes that strikes her cold with terror and vague forebodings of evil. It is a wicked look that overspreads the man's face—a cruel, implacable look that seems to freeze her as she gazes at him spell-bound. Slowly, even while she watches him, she sees him turn his glance from her to Sir Adrian in a meaning manner, as though to let her know that the vile thought that is working in his brain and is betraying itself on his face is intended for him, not her. And yet, with this too, he gives her silently to understand that, if she shows any treachery toward him, he will not leave it unrewarded.
Cowed, frightened, trembling at what she knows not, Dora staggers backward, and, laying a hand upon the wall beside her, tries to regain her self-possession. The others are all talking together, she is therefore unobserved. She stands, still panting and pallid, trying to collect her thoughts.
Only one thing comes clearly to her, filling her with loathing of herself and an unnamed dread—it is that, by her own double-dealing and falseness toward Florence, she has seemed to enter into a compact with this man to be a companion in whatever crime he may decide upon. His very look seems to implicate her, to drag her down with him to his level. She feels herself chained to him—his partner in a vile conspiracy. And what further adds to the horror of the situation is the knowledge that she knows herself to be blindly ignorant of whatever plans he may be forming.
After a few seconds she rouses herself, and wins back some degree of composure. It is of course a mere weakness to believe herself in the power of Arthur Dynecourt, she tries to convince herself. He is no more than any other ordinary acquaintance. If indeed she has helped him a little in his efforts to secure the love of Florence, there was no great harm in that, though of course it served her own purpose also.
"How pale you are, Mrs. Talbot?" remarks Sir Adrian suddenly, wheeling round to look at her more closely. "Has this damp old place really affected your nerves? Come, let us go down again, and forget in the sunshine that bloody deeds were ever committed here or elsewhere."
"I am nervous, I confess," responds Dora, in a low tone. "Yes, yes—let us leave this terrible room forever."
"So be it," says Sir Adrian gayly. "For my part, I feel no desire to ever re-enter it."
"It is very high art, I suppose," observes Ethel Villiers, glancing round the walls. "Uncomfortable places always are. It would be quite a treasure to Lady Betty Trefeld, who raves over the early Britons. It seems rather thrown away upon us. Captain Ringwood, you look as if you had been suddenly turned into stone. Let me pass, please."
"It was uncommonly friendly of Ringwood not to have let the door slam, and so imprisoned us for life," says Sir Adrian, with a laugh. "I am sure we owe him a debt of gratitude."
"I hope you'll all pay it," laughs Ringwood. "It will be a nice new experience for you to give a creditor something for once. I never pay my own debts; but that doesn't count. I feel sure you are all going to give me something for my services as door-keeper."
"What shall I give you?" asks Ethel coquettishly.
"I'll tell you by and by," he replies, with such an expressive look that for once the saucy girl has no answer ready, but, blushing crimson, hurries past him down the stone stairs, where she waits at the bottom for the others.
As Florence reaches the door she pauses and stoops to examine the lock.
"I wish," she says to Sir Adrian, a strange subdued excitement in her tone, "you would remove this lock. Do."
"But why?" he asks, impressed in spite of himself, by her manner.
"I hardly know myself; it is a fancy—an unaccountable one, perhaps—but still a powerful one. Do be guided by me, and have it removed."
"What—the fancy?" he asks, laughing.
"No—the lock. Humor me in this," she pleads earnestly, far more earnestly than the occasion seems to warrant. "Call it a silly presentiment, if you like, but I honestly think that lock will work you evil some day. Therefore it is that I ask you to do away with it."
"You ask me?" he queries.
"Yes, if only to please me—for my sake."
She has evidently forgotten her late distrust of him, for she speaks now in the old sweet tone, and with tears in her eyes. Sir Adrian flushes warmly.
"For your sake," he whispers. "What is there I would not do, if thus requested?"
A bitter sneer contracts Arthur Dynecourt's lips as he listens to the first part of this conversation and guesses at the latter half. He notes correctly the kindling of their eyes, the quick breath that comes and goes like happy sighs from the breast of Florence. He hears the whisper, sees the warm blush, and glances expressively at Dora. Meeting her eyes he says his finger on his lips to caution her to silence, and then, when passing by her, whispers:
"Meet me in half an hour in the lower gallery."
Bowing her acquiescence in this arrangement, fearing indeed to refuse, Dora follows the others from the haunted chamber.
At the foot of the small stone staircase—before they go through the first iron-bound door that leads to the corridor without—they find Ethel Villiers awaiting them. She had been looking round her in the dimly lighted stone passage, and has discovered another door fixed mysteriously in a corner, that had excited her curiosity.
"Where does this lead to, Sir Adrian?" she asks now, pointing to it.
"Oh, that is an old door connected with another passage that leads by a dark and wearying staircase to the servants' corridor beneath! I am afraid you won't be able to open it, as it is rusty with age and disuse. The servants would as soon think of coming up here as they would of making an appointment with the Evil One; so it has not been opened for years."
"Perhaps I can manage it," says Arthur Dynecourt, trying with all his might to force the ancient lock to yield to him. At length his efforts are crowned with success; the door flies creakingly open, and a cloud of dust uprising covers them like a mist.
"Ah!" exclaims Ethel, recoiling; but Arthur, stooping forward, carefully examines the dark staircase that lies before him wrapped in impenetrable gloom. Spider-nets have been drawn from wall to wall and hang in dusky clouds from the low ceiling; a faint, stale, stifling smell greets his nostrils, yet he lingers there and looks carefully around him.
"You'll fall into it, if you don't mind," remarks Captain Ringwood. "One would think uncanny spots had an unwholesome attraction for you."
Ringwood, ever since the memorable night in the smoking-room, when Sir Adrian was so near being killed, has looked askance at Arthur Dynecourt, and, when taking the trouble to address him at all, has been either sharp or pointed in his remarks. Arthur, contenting himself with a scowl at him, closes the little door again, and turns away from it.
"At night," says Sir Adrian, in an amused tone, "the servants, passing by the door below that leads up to this one, run by it as though they fear some ghostly ancestors of mine, descending from the haunted chamber, will pounce out upon them with their heads under their arms, or in some equally unpleasant position. You know the door, don't you, Arthur—the second from the turning?"
"No," replies Arthur, with his false smile, "I do not; nor, indeed, do I care to know it. I firmly believe I should run past it too after nightfall, unless well protected."
"That looks as if you had an evil conscience," says Ringwood carelessly, but none the less purposely.
"It looks more as if I were a coward, I think," retorts Arthur, laughing, but shooting an angry glance at the gallant captain as he speaks.
"Well, what does the immortal William say?" returns Ringwood coolly. "'Conscience doth make cowards of us all!'"
"You have a sharp wit, sir," says Arthur, with apparent lightness, but pale with passion.
"I say, look here," breaks in Sir Adrian hastily, pulling out his watch; "it must be nearly time for tea. By Jove, quite half past four, and we know what Lady FitzAlmont will say to us if we keep her deprived of her favorite beverage for even five minutes. Come, let us run, or destruction will light upon our heads."
So saying, he leads the way, and soon they leave the haunted chamber and all its gloomy associations far behind them.
CHAPTER VII.
Reluctantly, yet with a certain amount of curiosity to know what it is he may wish to say to her, Dora wends her way to the gallery to keep her appointment with Arthur. Pacing to and fro beneath the searching eyes of the gaunt cavaliers and haughty dames that gleam down upon him from their canvases upon the walls, Dynecourt impatiently awaits her coming.
"Ah, you are late!" he exclaims as she approaches. There is a tone of authority about him that dismays her.
"Not very, I think," she responds pleasantly, deeming conciliatory measures the best. "Why did you not come to the library? We all missed you so much at tea!"
"No doubt," he replies sarcastically. "I can well fancy the disappointment my absence caused; the blank looks and regretful speeches that marked my defection. Pshaw—let you and me at least be honest to each other! Did Florence, think you, shed tears because of my non-coming?"
This mood of his is so strange to her that, in spite of the natural false smoothness that belongs to her, it renders her dumb.
"Look here," he goes on savagely, "I have seen enough to-day up in that accursed room above—that haunted chamber—to show me our game is not yet won."
"Our game—what game?" asks Dora, with a foolish attempt at misconception.
He laughs aloud—a wild, unpleasant, scornful laugh, that makes her cheek turn pale. Its mirth, she tells herself, is demoniacal.
"You would get out of it now, would you?" he says. "It is too late, I tell you. You have gone some way with me, you must go the rest. I want your help, and you want mine. Will you draw back now, when the prize is half won, when a little more labor will place it within your grasp?"
"But there must be no violence," she gasps; "no attempt at—"
"What is it you would say?" he interrupts stonily. "Collect yourself; you surely do not know what you are hinting at. Violence! what do you mean by that?"
"I hardly know," she returns, trembling. "It was your look, your tone, I think, that frightened me."
"Put your nerves in your pocket for the future," he exclaims coarsely; "they are not wanted where I am. Now to business. You want to marry Sir Adrian, as I understand, whether his desire lies in the same direction or not?"
At this plain speaking the dainty little lady winces openly.
"My own opinion is that his desire does not run in your direction," continues Arthur remorselessly. "We both know where his heart would gladly find its home, where he would seek a bride to place here in this grand old castle, but I will frustrate that hope if I die for it."
He grinds his teeth as he says this, and looks with fierce defiant eyes at the long rows of his ancestors that line the walls.
"She would gladly see her proud fair face looking down upon me from amidst this goodly company," he goes on, apostrophizing the absent Florence. "But that shall never be. I have sworn it; unless—I am her husband—unless—I am her husband!"
More slowly, more thoughtfully he repeats this last phrase, until Dora, affrighted by the sudden change that has disfigured his face, speaks to him to distract his attention.
"You have brought me here to—" she ventures timidly.
"Ay, to tell you what is on my mind. I have said you want to marry Adrian; I mean to marry Florence Delmaine. To-day I disliked certain symptoms I saw, that led me to believe that my own machinations have not been as successful as I could have wished. Before going in for stronger measures, there is one more card that I will play. I have written you a note. Here it is, take it"—handing her a letter folded in the cocked-hat fashion.
"What am I to do with this?" asks Dora nervously.
"Read it. It is addressed to yourself. You will see I have copied Adrian's handwriting as closely as possible, and have put his initials A.D. at the end. And yet"—with a diabolical smile—"it is no forgery either, as A.D. are my initials also."
Opening the note with trembling fingers, Dora reads aloud as follows: