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Page 42
He staggers. His hold upon the door relaxes. His lamp falls to the
ground; the door closes with a soft but deadly thud behind him,
and--he is a prisoner in the haunted chamber! As the darkness closes
in upon him, and he finds himself alone with what he hardly dares to
contemplate, his senses grow confused, his brain reels; a fearful scream
issues from his lips, and he falls to the floor insensible.
CHAPTER XI.
Dora, after her interview with Arthur Dynecourt, feels indeed that all
is lost. Hope is abandoned--nothing remains but despair; and in this
instance despair gains in poignancy by the knowledge that she believes
she knows the man who could help them to a solution of their troubles if
he would or dared. No; clearly he dare not! Therefore, no assistance can
be looked for from him.
Dinner at the castle has been a promiscuous sort of entertainment for
the past three or four days, so Dora feels no compunction in declining
to go to it. In her own room she sits brooding miserably over her
inability to be of any use in the present crisis, when she suddenly
remembers that she had promised in the afternoon when with Florence to
give her, later on, an account of her effort to obtain the truth about
this mystery which is harrowing them.
It is now eleven o'clock, and Dora decides that she must see Florence
at once. Rising, wearily, she is about to cross the corridor to her
cousin's room, when, the door opening, she sees Florence, with a face
pale and agitated, coming toward her.
"You, Florence!" she exclaims. "I was just going to you, to tell you
that my hopes of this afternoon are all--"
"Let me speak," interrupts Florence breathlessly. "I must, or--" She
sinks into a chair, her eyes close, and involuntarily she lays her hand
upon her heart as if to allay its tumultuous beating.
Dora, really alarmed, rushing to her dressing-case, seizes upon a flask
of eau-de-Cologne, and flings some of its contents freely over the
fainting girl. Florence, with a sigh, rouses herself, and sits upright.
"There is no time to lose," she says confusedly. "Oh, Dora!" Here she
breaks down and bursts into tears.
"Try to compose yourself," entreats Dora, seeing the girl has some
important news to impart, but is so nervous and unstrung as to be almost
incapable of speaking with any coherence. But presently Florence grows
calmer, and then, her voice becoming clear and full, she is able to
unburden her heart.
"All this day I have been oppressed by a curious restlessness," she says
to Dora; "and, when you left me this afternoon, your vague promises of
being able to elucidate the terrible secret that is weighing us down
made me even more unsettled. I did not go down to dinner--"
"Neither did I," puts in Mrs. Talbot sympathetically.
"I wandered up and down my room for at least two hours, thinking always,
and waiting for the moment when you would return, according to promise,
and tell me the success of your hidden enterprise. You did not come, and
at half past nine, unable to stay any longer in my own room with only
my own thoughts for company, I opened my door, and, listening intently,
found by the deep silence that reigned throughout the house that almost
every one was gone, if not to bed, at least to their own rooms."
"Lady FitzAlmont and Gertrude passed to their rooms about an hour
ago," says Dora. "But some of the men, I think, are still in the
smoking-room."
"I did not think of them. I stole from my room, and roamed idly
through the halls. Suddenly a great--I can not help thinking now a
supernaturally strong--desire to go into the servants' corridor took
possession of me. Without allowing myself an instant's hesitation, I
turned in its direction, and walked on until I reached it."
She pauses here, and draws her breath rapidly.
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