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Page 44
"At that rate, if secrecy is to be our first thought, let you and me go
alone in search of Sir Adrian."
"Alone, and at this hour, to that awful room!" exclaims Dora, recoiling
from her.
"Yes, at once"--firmly--"without another moment's delay."
"Oh, I can not!" declares Dora, shuddering violently.
"Then I shall go alone!"
As Florence says this, she takes up her candlestick and moves quickly
toward the door.
"Stay, I will go," cries Dora, trembling. But a slight interruption
occurring at this instant, they are compelled to wait for awhile.
Ethel Villiers, coming into the room to make her parting adieus to
Mrs. Talbot, as she and her father intend leaving next morning, gazes
anxiously from Florence to Dora, seeing plainly that there is something
amiss.
"What is it?" she asks kindly, going up to Florence.
Miss Delmaine, after a little hesitation, encouraged by a glance at
Dora's terrified countenance, determines on taking the new-comer into
their confidence.
In a few words she explains all that has taken place, and their
suspicions. Ethel, though paling beneath the horror and surprise
occasioned by the recital, does not lose her self-possession.
"I will go with you," she volunteers. "But, let me say," she adds, "that
I think you are wrong in making this search without a man. If--if indeed
we are still in time to be of any use to poor Sir Adrian--always
supposing he really is secreted in that terrible room--I do not think
any of us would be strong enough to help him down the stairs, and, if he
has been slowly starving all this time, think how weak he will be!"
"Oh, what a wretched picture you conjure up!" exclaims Florence,
nervously clasping her hands. "But you are right, and now tell me who
you think can best be depended upon in this crisis."
"I am sure," says Ethel, blushing slightly, but speaking with intense
earnestness, "that, if you would not mind trusting Captain Ringwood, he
would be both safe and useful."
As this suggestion meets with approval, they manage to convey a message
to the captain, and in a very few minutes he is with them, and is made
acquainted with their hopes and fears.
Silently, cautiously, without any light, but carrying two small lamps
ready for ignition, they go down to the corridor where is the door that
leads to the secret staircase.
Turning the handle of this door, Captain Ringwood discovers that it is
locked, but, nothing daunted, he pulls it so violently backward and
forward that the lock, rusty with age, gives way, and leaves the passage
beyond open to them.
Going into the small landing at the foot of the staircase, they close
the door carefully behind them, and then, Captain Ringwood producing
some matches, they light the two lamps and go swiftly, with anxiously
beating hearts, up the stairs.
The second door is reached, and now nothing remains but to mount the
last flight of steps and open the fatal door.
Their hearts at this trying moment almost fail them. They look into one
another's blanched faces, and look there in vain for hope. At last
Ringwood, touching Ethel's arm, says, in a whisper--
"Come, have courage--all may yet be well!"
He moves toward the stone steps, and they follow him. Quickly mounting
them, he lays his hand upon the door, and, afraid to give them any more
time for reflection or dread of what may yet be in store for them,
throws it open.
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